Stone Mattress (Atwood) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
An obsession with aging and dying unites much of Stone Mattress, and Atwood, more than 40 books into her career, has arrived here preoccupied not just with the churn of generations but also with legacy and reputation, with getting straight the story of one’s life—the tale about the tale—and with surviving what happens once no one is paying any attention anymore.... Witty and frequently biting, Stone Mattress is keen to the ways in which we choose, all our lives, to love and to hurt—and in Atwood’s world these two actions are always choices, creating consequences for which we will one day be held to account.
Matt Bell - New York Times Book Review


(Starred review.) Atwood, a bestselling master of fiction, delivers a stunning collection...[and] brings her biting wit to bear on the battle of the sexes....[Given Atwood's] wild imagination...it's clear that this grande dame is at the top of her game.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Aging and death reverberate throughout Atwood's (MaddAddam) excellent collection.... Poignant, funny, distressing, and surreal, Atwood's stories bring the extraordinary to the ordinary. For Atwood devotees and literary fiction fans. —Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Univ. Law Lib.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Shrewdly brilliant, gleefully mischievous, and acerbically hilarious...Atwood has the raptor's penetrating gaze, speed, and agility and never misses her mark.
Booklist


Clever tales about writers, lovers and other weirdos. This, explains Atwood in the acknowledgements, is a book of tales, not stories, which means that it's removed "at least slightly from the realm of mundane works and days."... Up to her old tricks and not dropping a card.
Kirkus Reviews