Why a Booktrail?
1930s,1940s -Toronto screams out for an Atwood booktrail and this contains a book within a book which makes for one interesting read!
The Blind Assassin
What you need to know before your trail
“Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge”
Over fifty years later, Iris Chase often thinks about Laura’s mysterious death. She thinks of the events and days which led up to her sister’s death and recalls her early years and the time they spent together.
Laura wrote a book The Blind Assassin which is published posthumously. It’s about two lovers who meet in secret. The man loves to entertain his lover with science fiction stories, one of which is about a blind assassin and a virgin who falls in love.
Iris looks back at her life and that of Laura – two women constrained by society but these are two women with secrets and born within a world, neither of them will fully understand.
Travel Guide
There are two settings within this novel -Toronto, Ontario where the present day and real setting of the book takes place. It’s where the two sisters live and they showcase their city well – there are mentions of many sights in and round the city and the main ones are listed in the booktrail below.
The clever way of introducing the culture and media backdrop to the city comes in the form of the newspaper clippings which are used to give us snippets of the story at large -The clippings themselves lead to our mystery: slender threads of knowledge and mention of The Toronto Star for example – one of the city’s popular newspapers today.
“A coroner’s inquest has returned a verdict of accidental death in last week’s St Clair Ave fatality”
The novel within a novel – the Blind Assassin is set in a science fiction setting which is as compelling as any we’ve ever come across and makes the Toronto based setting seem calm and good in comparison!
We are thrown between the real world and the setting of the science fiction novel ‘The Blind Assassin’ :
“The Blind assassin turns the key in the door. His heart is beating hard, as it always does at such moments: moments of considerable danger to himself. If he is caught, the death that will be prepared for him will be prolonged and painful…”
Two worlds. Then two words collide. A novel within a novel. The mystery of just who the Blind assassin is and what it all means is a journey of many kinds.
Streetview Maps
1) Toronto - St Clair Avenue
This street is where the accident happens at the start of the novel
This street is where the accident happens at the start of the novel
4) Toronto -The Royal York Hotel
The novel is centered here
The novel is centered here
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information:
Twitter: @MargaretAtwood
Facebook: /MargaretAtwoodAuthor
Web: margaretatwood.ca
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
