Stone Mattress

ALPHINLAND

The freezing rain sifts down, handfuls of shining rice thrown by some unseen celebrant. Wherever it hits, it crystallizes into a granulated coating of ice. Under the streetlights it looks so beautiful: like fairy silver, thinks Constance. But then, she would think that; she s far too prone to enchantment. The beauty is an illusion, and also a warning: there s a dark side to beauty, as with poisonous butterflies. She ought to be considering the dangers, the hazards, the grief this ice storm is going to bring to many; is already bringing, according to the television news.

The tv screen is a flat high-definition one that Ewan bought so he could watch hockey and football games on it. Constance would rather have the old fuzzy one back, with its strangely orange people and its habit of rippling and fading: there are some things that do not fare well in high definition. She resents the pores, the wrinkles, the nose hairs, the impossibly whitened teeth shoved right up in front of your eyes so you can t ignore them the way you would in real life. It s like being forced to act as someone else s bathroom mirror, the magnifying kind: seldom a happy experience, those mirrors.

Luckily, on the weather show the personnel stand well back. They have their maps to attend to, their broad hand gestures, like those of waiters in glamorous films of the 30s or magicians about to reveal the floating lady. Behold! Gigantic swaths of whiteness plume across the continent! Just look at the extent of it!

Now the show moves outside. Two young commentators--a boy, a girl, both of them wearing stylish black parkas with halos of pale fur around their faces--hunch under dripping umbrellas as cars grind slowly past them, windshield wipers labouring. They re excited; they say they ve never seen anything like it. Of course they haven t, they re too young. Next there are shots of calamities: a multiple car-crash pileup, a fallen tree that s bashed off part of a house, a

Margaret Atwood

Eclectic, funny, vibrant, terrifying, beautiful, and utterly delightful. The Boston Globe

A tour de force of wit, style, and discernment. O, The Oprah Magazine

Astonishing. . . . Powerful. . . . I loved these strange, sharp and wild stories. Meg Wolitzer, NPR

Pure, simple and stunning. . . . Endearing, subtle, quite brilliant. San Francisco Chronicle

Powerful. . . . Witty and frequently biting, Stone Mattress is keen to the ways in which we choose, all our lives, to love and to hurt and in Atwood s world these two actions are always choices, creating consequences for which we will one day be held to account. The New York Times Book Review

Danc[es] over the dark swamps of Horror on the wings of satirical wit. . . .  Look at these tales . . .  as eight icily refreshing arsenic Popsicles followed by a baked Alaska laced with anthrax, all served with impeccable style and aplomb. Enjoy! Ursula K. Le Guin, Financial Times

The collection is surprisingly unsettling, gripping and at once laugh-out-loud hilarious. It attains its laudable goal: Myths last over time, and the stories in this book have that very quality. They are timeless, memorable and quite simply fun. Chicago Tribune

Powerful. . . . Extraordinary. . . . Realism and ridiculousness, play and deadly seriousness, are held in fine balance throughout. The Guardian (London)