Maddaddam

Egg

The Story of the Egg, and of Oryx and Crake, and how they made People and Animals; and of the Chaos; and of Snowman-the-Jimmy; and of the Smelly Bone and the coming of the Two Bad Men

In the beginning, you lived inside the Egg. That is where Crake made you.

Yes, good, kind Crake. Please stop singing or I can t go on with the story.

The Egg was big and round and white, like half a bubble, and there were trees inside it with leaves and grass and berries. All the things you like to eat.

Yes, it rained inside the Egg.

No, there was not any thunder.

Because Crake did not want any thunder inside the Egg.

And all around the Egg was the chaos, with many, many people who were not like you.

Because they had an extra skin. That skin is called clothes. Yes, like mine.

And many of them were bad people who did cruel and hurtful things to one another, and also to the animals. Such as . . . We don t need to talk about those things right now.

And Oryx was very sad about that, because the animals were her Children. And Crake was sad because Oryx was sad.

And the chaos was everywhere outside the Egg. But inside the Egg there was no chaos. It was peaceful there.

And Oryx came every day to teach you. She taught you what to eat, she taught you to make fire, she taught you about the animals, her Children. She taught you to purr if a person is hurt. And Crake watched over you.

Yes, good, kind Crake. Please stop singing. You don t have to sing every time. I m sure Crake likes it, but he also likes this story and he wants to hear the rest.

Then one day Crake got rid of the chaos and the hurtful people, to make Oryx happy, and to clear a safe place for you to live in.

Yes, that did make things smell very bad for a while.

And then Crake went to his own place, up in the sky, and Oryx went with him.

I don t know why they went. It must have been a good reason. And they left Snowman-the-Jimmy to take care of you, and he brought you to the

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade.
 
Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

"Lights a fire from the fears of our age. . . . Miraculously balances humor, outrage, and beauty." The New York Times Book Review

"Margaret Atwood is an utterly thrilling storyteller. . . . [MaddAddam is] wonderfully entertaining and just about everything you could want in a novel." The Washington Post

Thoughtful, sardonic, and full of touches that almost resemble a fairy tale, MaddAddam will stick with you long after you ve put it down. NPR

"The most profound [book] of the trilogy. . . . An adventure story and a philosophical meditation on humanity's predilection for carnage and creation." The Economist
 
"[Atwood s] most incisive and sociologically acute work. . . . A picture of a very near and very plausible future." New York magazine

[Atwood s] vision of global disaster in the not-too-distant future is thrilling, funny, touching and, yes, horrific. The Washington Post

Fiction master Margaret Atwood wields a mighty pen. O, The Oprah Magazine

Sardonically funny. . . . [Atwood] certainly has the tone exactly right, both for the linguistic hypocrisy that can disguise any kind of catastrophe, and for the contemptuous dismissal of those who point to disaster. . . . MaddAddam is at once a pre- and a post-apocalypse story. The Wall Street Journal

The culmination of a satirical dystopian saga a decade in the making. . . . Full of adventure and intrigue. San Francisco Chronicle

The imaginative universe Atwood has created in these books is huge. . . . It s a dystopia, but it s still fun. Los Angeles Times

This third book of Margaret Atwood s acclaimed near-future dystopian trilogy is its best. . . .  Atwood presents a moving and convincing case for our stories continued existence long after we re gone. The Seattle Times

This unsentimental narrative exposes the heart of human creativity as well as our self-destructive darkness. . . . MaddAddam is fueled with edgy humor, sardonic twists, hilarious coincidences.