Old Babes in the Wood

by Margaret Atwood

Yup. This collection of short stories is yet more evidence that Atwood deserves her title as Canada’s writing royalty. A meditation on age, death, and what happens afterwards, Atwood makes it fine to confuse dates, guess details, invent the bits you can’t remember, and dwell on people and happenings from the past. Her slightly removed observational style makes the humorous parts funnier and the sad stuff more digestible, and the stories—some completely bizarre and others totally relatable—zip along at a compelling pace. In my favourite, Metempsychosis or, The Journey of the Soul, a snail skips many lifetimes of moving up the chain and is reborn directly in human form, still exhibiting many mollusc tastes and tendencies. Atwood’s skill for walking the tightrope of the absurd is magnificent, as are all her others.