The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood is an epic endeavor that manages to sustain a story-within-a-story throughout. The story opens with Iris telling us how her sister Laura drove off a bridge. While the newspapers say it was an accident, Iris knows that isn't true. We then jump into the past, tracing the history of the sisters, whose past intertwines with the lives of several shady yet powerful individuals.
Interspersed between episodes in the sisters' lives and glimpses if Iris' beleaguered present, Atwood treats us to a science fiction fantasy that at first seems out of place, but quickly proves to provide integral clues to solve the mystery of what really happened to Laura and Iris.
This novel-within-a-novel is actually titled The Blind Assassin. While it is somewhat over the top as a sci fi genre piece, it is a brilliant parallel by Atwood, who manages to bring the two novels together seamlessly at the end.
Atwood is a master at changing voice and points of view throughout a story. In The Blind Assassin, this skill serves to reveal the story bit by bit, tantalizing with a revelation here, a clue there, until it all finally becomes clear at the end.
Although this hefty novel becomes a little slow and drawn out at times, with seemingly irrelevant details and subplots, the end result is worth the winding and the wait.
