Surfacing - by Margaret Atwood (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments--this story of an artist who goes in search of her missing father on a remote island in northern Quebec is a provocative blend of literary mystery, psychological thriller, and spiritual journey.

Accompanied by her boyfriend and a young married couple, the artist searches her abandoned childhood home for clues her parents may have left. But in the disorienting, transformative isolation of the wilderness, her friends' marriage begins to crumble, sex becomes a catalyst for conflict, and violence and death lurk just beneath the surface. As her relentless probing leads to an electrifying confrontation with her own suppressed secrets, she rapidly descends into what could be either madness or the starkest self-knowledge.

Margaret Atwood's haunting masterpiece is permeated with suspense, complex with layered meanings, and written in brilliant, diamond-sharp prose.

Review Quotes

"One of the most important novels of the 20th century." --Francine Du Plessix Gray

"Atwood has undertaken a serious and complex task. . . . She shows the depths that must be explored if one attempts to live an examined life." --The New York Times Book Review

"A remarkable creation. . . . The most extraordinary metamorphosis in fiction since Kafka's Gregor Samsa woke up as a giant insect." --The Guardian

"Margaret Atwood is one of the most intelligent and talented writers to set herself the task of deciphering life in the late twentieth century." --Vogue

About the Author

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid's Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade.

Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.