Product Description

Zenia is beautiful, smart and greedy, by turns manipulative and vulnerable, needy and ruthless; a man's dream and a woman's nightmare. She is also dead. Just to make sure Tony, Roz and Charis are there for the funeral. But five years on, as the three women share an indulgent, sisterly lunch, the unthinkable happens; 'with waves of ill will flowing out of her like cosmic radiation', Zenia is back.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1728600 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Review
'It stirs depths that Cat's Eye did not reach, and grants deeper stronger powers to women's friendship in distress' MARINA WARNER

This is Margaret Atwood at her sharpest and most subversive. If it is a novel about the power of women's friendship, it is also a novel about the destructive nature of women to women. Three women are joined in friendship through their united dislike of Zenia - man-eater, pathological liar and slut. Zenia gets her kicks from wanting what someone else has, getting what she wants, then no longer wanting what she has taken. They think their enemy, Zenia, is dead. Five years on, as they meet for lunch, Zenia returns. She has destroyed the happiness of each of them once - will she manage it again? Or will they get her before she gets them? Atwood tells the three tales in her usual unflinching, slightly sardonic, beautifully crafted way - the characters of the four women are immediately engaging and read with truth (one of Atwood's consistent skills is to give her characters this sense of absolute verity). The pain they suffer, their forbearance, their willingness to be taken in, and charity towards the always convincing Zenia, makes compelling reading. And her creation of Zenia - every woman's nightmare, every man's dreamboat - is bewitching. Not surprisingly, given the title, it ends as if it were a fairy tale: good is rewarded, bad is punished. The ending is utterly and completely satisfying. You may close the book, turn over, sigh and go comfortably off to sleep, safe in the knowledge that the world deals summarily with monsters. (Kirkus UK)

Antonia (Tony), Karen (Charis), and Roz are three 50-ish Toronto friends, pals since college, all of whom have had to negotiate (and none too well) the treacheries of another friend, Zenia - someone who in the past has stolen a significant man from each of the others. But Zenia, they are led relievedly to understand, has been dead for some years - blown up in a Beirut bomb blast; they had carefully attended, together, her memorial service to make doubly sure. Yet why does the very selfsame Zenia now appear across the room one afternoon at a restaurant where the three women are lunching? It creates turmoil. Tony - a college military historian with a milquetoasty composer husband and an annoying tic of spelling words backwards; doggedly hippie Charis, New Age-y survivor of incest, and lover of a US draft-dodger; and Roz, power-businesswoman despite herself, wife of a sad-sack philanderer - all of the massed trio views Zenia not only as a communal threat, but as a chastening, changeable contrast to the courses of their own lives. Atwood (Wilderness Tips, 1991; Cat's Eye, 1989, etc.) does a professionally tidy job with the outline of this social comedy, but apart from some poetic turbocharging around Charis's memories of abuse, plus a nice capture of modern manners most of the time, the book lacks luster: it could be a more brittle, smarter Rona Jaffe novel. Atwood seems to want to make the three unlikely friends both representative of their age, place, and times - but also not: the flaky names and square-peg lifestyles argue for an individualism none of the women quite achieves. And Zenia, the fox among these chickens, is utterly cloudy, a trope instead of a character. Amusing sometimes, but flogged and padded - hardly one of Atwood's better efforts. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939. She is Canada's most eminent novelist and poet and has published more than thirty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her work has been translated into thirty-three languages. Her latest novel, The Blind Assassin won the 2000 Booker Prize.

Customer Reviews

One of Atwood's best
I loved this book and am suprised by some of the negative comments by other reviewers as i would rate it highly on my Atwood reading list. (Much better than 'Alias Grace')

Reading this, i was really caught up in the tension the characters feel by the fraught memories and possible reunion with Zenia. For me this novel really captured the betrayal and hate that can seep into female 'friendships', much in the same way that Atwood captures the child bully relationship in 'Cat's Eye'. Atwood perfectly articulates the desperate loathing that women will feel for each other, when betrayed by those closest to them, with whom they have shared their deepest feelings.

A really great read that will leave you breathless and desperately waiting for the 'revelation'

Not a great read...
Having read The Blind Assassin & Alias Grace within a week, I found it really surprising that it took me months to read this book – the reason being, it is so drawn out and the characters are so un-engaging that it’s impossible to really get stuck into the story.

I found it difficult to feel anything for the characters, other than thinking they are all exceptionally irritating. There was also so much time devoted to overdrawn descriptions & recounts of the past, instead of actually putting meat into the plot and bringing the story alive. The only character who was anyway interesting was Zenia, yet she was the one with the least told from her point of view. I understand this is deliberate, but the three characters telling the story were so irritating, it would have been refreshing to hear another point of view.

I convinced myself to keep reading as I thought it could only get better as I got through the book, but in the end I finished it just for the sake of finishing. To get through the last two chapters, I ended up skimming over anything that wasn’t dialogue - not a good sign.

There are so many engrossing books out there, that I would definitely recommend leaving this one aside.

One of Atwood's Best
As a fan of 'Alias Grace' and 'The Blind Assassin' I enjoyed reading this book all the way through. Toni, Charis and Roz although all different (and were all at the same university) are brought together after unfortunate encounters with the evil Zenia. For me personally it was Zenia's character that made me want to keep reading as well as wanting to kill her as I've meet people like her before in my own life. A long but enthrilling read