This is my favorite Margaret Atwood book. It is just a tiny book of short essays and prose poems. They are smart and funny and very vivid. Over the years I have re-read many of these pieces over and over again. ( )

For just a taste of Atwood's insight on women and their relationships with men, these short stories deliver a punch in concentrated prose. One memorable favorite of mine is "Boyfriends," where the only detail about each boy the narrator dated in her youth that can be recalled is what outfit she wore on their date. Another favorite is "Simmering," which tells of the gradual gender role reversal over a long period time until men become bound to the kitchen, and women are forced to work lest they threaten their man's masculinity by baking a pie. These stories are clever and light, almost teasing in tone in the case of "Simmering."

Others stories, like "Worship" and "Iconography" are dark, but frightfully honest about courtship and sexual rituals. Some evoke bleakness in only a page and a half of space. These stories feel like exercises in summoning emotion in readers, as if it were practice for Atwood's larger tomes. It's impressive that the author can weild this power just as well in story that's a page long as she can in novel of 600 pages. ( )

A collection of short stories

When I say short, I do mean short, at often only a page or two in length, (I read the entire collection within the first hour) but this does not mead that, there is no “content” Atwood manages to create subtle, thought-provoking and well rounded stories in only a few words.

The stories themselves range from the poignant, through amusing to the satirical and also occasionally dark and scary.

A really enjoyable read.

Read and comment on my full review at:
http://www.bartsbookshelf.co.uk/2008/10/28/murder-in-the-dark-short-fictions-and... ( )

This is a slim collection of what are described as short stories and prose poems, some of the stories are very short, so I assume that they're the prose poems - I'm rather embarrassed that I can't tell the difference. I'm a fan of Margaret Atwood's short stories and this is an excellent collection.

One story, Simmering, is of a gender-reversed society - the story is told from the future, after men have become the home-keepers and women go out to work. The twist is that women have entirely feminised the workplace, whilst men have masculined the home (with machines, clubs and secret handshakes) and women, sick of the feminised workplace, are desperately trying to liberate themselves from it and re-enter that bastion of masculinity - the kitchen. The story uses the same device as A Handmaid's Tale, of telling the story of the future as a history, told by someone from a still further future - a wry and funny piece of writing.

I also liked Happy Endings, about relationships described from different angles, almost like the cast description for a play, but with alternative courses played out like a musical variations. ( )

Poems in prose and exercises in ideas. ( )