MaddAddam Synopsis
For fans of the first two books and readers of Margaret Atwood's fiction in general. Bringing together characters from Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, this thrilling conclusion to Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction trilogy confirms the ultimate endurance of humanity, community, and love.Months after the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the vicious Painballers. They return to the MaddAddamite cob house, which is being fortified against man and giant Pigoon alike. Accompanying them are the Crakers, the gentle, quasi-human species engineered by the brilliant but deceased Crake. While their reluctant prophet, Jimmy -- Crake's one-time friend -- recovers from a debilitating fever, it's left to Toby to narrate the Craker theology, with Crake as Creator. She must also deal with cultural misunderstandings, terrible coffee, and her jealousy over her lover, Zeb.Meanwhile, Zeb searches for Adam One, founder of the God's Gardeners, the pacifist green religion from which Zeb broke years ago to lead the MaddAddamites in active resistance against the destructive CorpSeCorps. Now, under threat of an imminent Painballer attack, the MaddAddamites must fight back with the aid of their newfound allies, some of whom have four trotters.At the centre, is the extraordinary story of Zeb's past, which involves a lost brother, a hidden murder, a bear, and a bizarre act of revenge.Combining adventure, humour, romance, superb storytelling, and an imagination that is at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is vintage Margaret Atwood, and a moving and dramatic conclusion to her internationally celebrated dystopian trilogy.
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Margaret Atwood Press Reviews
'Moving, but also very funny ... MaddAddam is an extraordinary achievement' -- Independent on Sunday
'A fierce, learned intelligence ... MaddAddam is a wild ride ... great fun' -- Guardian
'Atwood has brought the previous two books together in a fitting and joyous conclusion ... Atwood's prose miraculously balances humor, outrage and beauty ... This finale to Atwood's ingenious trilogy lights a fire from the fears of our age, then douses it with hope for the planet's survival' -- New York Times
'There are few writers able to create a world so fiercely engaging, so funny, so teeming - ironically - with life. MaddAddam is ultimately a paean to the enduring powers of myth and story, and like the sharpest futuristic visions, it's really all about the here and now' -- Daily Mail
'This final volume deploys its author's trademark cool, omniscient satire, but adds to that a real sense of engagement with a fallen world. Atwood has created something reminiscent of Shakespeare's late comedies; her wit and dark humour combine with a compassionate tenderness towards struggling human beings ... Since almost everything in the world has been broken or has broken down, the novel's form, whirling as brilliantly as the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, or the pixels in a complex computer game, seems simply to replicate that chaos. However, behind the apparent disorder Atwood the conjuror remains in firm control, juggling her narrative techniques with postmodern glee' -- Independent
'A haunting, restless triumph ... A writer of virtuoso diversity, with an imagination that responds as keenly to scientific concerns as it does to the literary heritage in which she is steeped ... A dystopia over which Atwood sets swirling a glitterball of different kinds of fiction' -- Sunday Times
'It may have been a decade in the making, but it has been well worth the wait ... Margaret Atwood not only completes one of the most harrowing visions of a near-future dystopia in recent fiction, but lures us even further into new zones of existential terror' -- The Times
About Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
She is the author of more than twenty-five volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride and Alias Grace. Her novel, The Blind Assassin, won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.
Author photo © George Whiteside
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