The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood (2000)
“A dying woman writes a memoir that reveals she — not her dead sister — authored the scandalous novel everyone attributes to the wrong Chase sister.”
Short Summary
Elderly Iris Chase Griffen writes a memoir recounting the intertwined fates of two sisters in a Canadian industrial dynasty. Within Iris's memoir sits a posthumously published novel attributed to her sister Laura, which itself contains a nested science-fiction story told by a nameless lover. As Iris's account unfolds across decades — from their privileged 1930s childhood through war, betrayal, and arranged marriage — each narrative layer gradually exposes the others' deceptions, culminating in the revelation that Iris, not Laura, wrote 'The Blind Assassin,' and that the novel encodes an affair, a political conspiracy, and the true circumstances of Laura's death.
Detailed Summary
The novel opens with two deaths: Laura Chase drives off a bridge in 1945, and Iris Chase Griffen, her elderly sister, begins the memoir we are reading in the late 1990s. Between these bookends, three narratives interweave with devastating precision. The outermost layer is Iris's present-day memoir,...