The Year of the Flood

right. The driveway, with its lumirose borders, untidy now as as frayed hairbrushes, their purple glow fading in the strengthening light. The western entrance, done in pink adobe-style solarskin, the snarl of tangled cars outside the gate. The flowerbeds, choked with sow thistle and burdock, enormous aqua kudzu moths fluttering above them. The fountains, their scallop-shell basins filled with stagnant rainwater. The parking lot with a pink golf cart and two pink AnooYoo minibuses, each with its winking-eye logo. There's a fourth minibus further along the drive, crashed into a tree: there used to be an arm hanging out of the window, but it's gone now.The wide lawns have grown up, tall weeds. There are low irregular mounds beneath the milkweed and fleabane and sorrel, with here and there a swatch of fabric, a glint of bone. That's where the people fell, the ones who'd been running or staggering across the lawn. Toby had watched from the roof, crouched behind one of the planters, but she hadn't watched for long. Some of those people had called for help, as if they'd known she was there. But how could she have helped? The swimming pool has a mottled blanket of algae. Already there are frogs. The herons and the egrets and the peagrets hunt them, at the shallow end. For a while Toby tried to scoop out the small animals that had blundered in and drowned. The luminous green rabbits, the rats, the rakunks, with their striped tails and racoon bandit masks. But now she leaves them alone. Maybe they'll attract fish, somehow.Is she thinking of eating these future fish? Surely not. Surely not yet.She turns to the dark encircling wall of trees and vines and fronds and shrubby undergrowth, probing it with her binoculars. It's surely from there that any danger might come. But what kind of danger? She can't imagine.

In the night there are the usual noises: the faraway barking of dogs, the tittering of mice, the water-pipe notes of the crickets, the occasional grumph of

surprisingly touching. . . . She enchants us so convincingly that after her spell is over, the real  world seems temporarily transformed. The Year of the Flood is both a warning and a gift. Jane Ciabattari, Books We Like, NPR.org
 
Atwood is a wry wizard at world-building. . . . Fans . . . should grab a biohazard suit, crawl into a hermetically sealed fallout shelter, and dive right in. The Christian Science Monitor

Funny. . . . Entertaining. . . . You fall into her intensely inventive world and find yourself carried happily along. Anthony Doerr, Orion Magazine

Atwood scores a 10. Philadelphia Inquirer
 
Atwood's latest is a fiercely imagined tale of suffering that rivals Job s. . . . As dark as Atwood's vision may be, the bonds among her women give her work a bittersweet power. People
 
Richly imagined. . . . Thought-provoking, unexpectedly funny and utterly original. The Denver Post
 
Engrossing and suspenseful. The New York Review of Books
 
Riveting. . . . Cunning, droll. . . . The intensity of her apocalyptic fantasy doesn t prevent Atwood from giving free rein to her peppery and inventive humor. . . . So she courts us with her puckish wit, holds us spellbound with suspense, and then confronts us with harrowing and tragic scenarios. The Kansas City Star
 
Atwood s language remains as juicy and colorful as ever. . . . [She] allows her imagination to roam rudely, widely, and vigorously where lesser minds fear to tread. Barnes & Noble Review
 
Vintage Atwood: It s artfully edgy, casting a pitiless eye on her fellow creatures. . . . A powerful indictment of the way human beings have long treated the planet and themselves. . . . The book takes big risks. Chicago Tribune


Mesmerizing. . . . Flood's relentlessly fabulous inventions and despondent predictions become almost unbearable, especially told in such gorgeously trenchant prose. In this way, the book recalls Atwood s 1985 masterpiece, The Handmaid's Tale. Time Out New York (five out of five stars)

Atwood unflinchingly holds aloft the sanctity of life for all species and the human quest for love.   Chicago Sun-Times

With Atwood s characteristic brainy humor. . . . The Year of the Flood consistently does what one expects of any work by Margaret Atwood: It entertains, spins out suspense and rewards a reader's basic impulse, all the while subtly and expertly maintaining its literary respectability. Minneapolis Star Tribune

[An] entertaining, often mesmerizing, consciousness-raising novel. . . . This is a work that amuses, informs, enlightens and, remarkably, also challenges its readers to be better persons. San Antonio Express-News
 
[Atwood] is emerging as literature s queen of the apocalypse. . . . Fine. . . . Illuminating. . . . Gripping and scary, provocative and quite humorous. Associated Press
 
A marvelously absorbing novel. . . . Vivid and remarkably drawn. The A. V. Club
 
[With] Atwood s trademark wit and clarity of vision. The Dallas Morning News
 
Atwood's mischievous, suspenseful, and sagacious dystopian novel follows the trajectory of current environmental debacles to a shattering possible conclusion with passionate concern and arch humor. Booklist, starred review