Margaret Atwood is a superb writer and an astute observer of the human condition. She writes across genres and times, from the realistic minutia of day-to-day domestic life to fantastical supernatural stories or fables steeped in superstition. Her recent collected and connected short story anthology Old Babes in the Wood (Penguin Random House 2023) is a stunning array of her talents, and while some tales appealed or resonated more with me than others, on the whole it is a strong, precise and microscopic examination of human nature.
My favourite section was the first third, Tig and Nell, which contains three short stories about these two characters and their relationship, a deep dive into emotion, reason, history, love and loss. The second section, My Evil Mother, contains more stories of a supernatural bent and I did not like this as much, although of the eight included stories, the titular My Evil Mother is probably my favourite. The last third, Nell and Tig, contains four stories related to the first section and continues on with the relationship between these two characters, although one has now died. In some of the strongest writing in the book, Atwood depicts the grief, pain and loneliness of an older person who has lost their lifelong partner in a remarkable and moving series of everyday activities and thoughts that reflect their longing.
In this collection, there is a girl wondering if her mother is really a witch; a confused snail; an alien / fairytale story; a disagreement between best friends; old relics; George Orwell; cats; and what to do if someone chokes. The breadth of content is astounding. The bookend sections recounting the long marriage of Nell and Tig and what comes after one has died nicely collate the book into a whole, although I would not call it a series of interconnected stories so much as tales tangentially related in obscure ways.
In any event, it is Margaret Atwood, who can always be relied upon to utter that perfect sentence, to describe that familiar emotion, to deconstruct belief and to put her finger on exactly the sore spot and press ever so gently.