Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Having had this on the shelves for some time, I picked this up with the mistaken belief that it was a novel, an impression not corrected by the cover copy which consisted of quotes about other books by Atwood. So when I came to the end of the first short section, I was taken aback when the next item was about totally different characters in a different situation. This was partly due to the anticlimactic nature of what turned out to be the ending of the first story, especially as that story, about teenage waitresses at a summer camp and the younger boys who spy on them, moves around a lot in the chronology of some of the characters. I had been keen to read on and find out what happened - then found out that was it.

Quite a few stories in this book are like that. On the whole, they are well written though most share a world-weary viewpoint about the unreliability, even treachery, of most men which makes them a bit samey. The best is Death by Landscape which I realised part way through I had read somewhere before (not in this book, which came shrink-wrapped from a book club) but still enjoyed. Whether coincidentally or not, this is one of the few that does not dwell on women's disillusionment with men, and instead is about a haunting experience from a woman's childhood. The theme of the collection seems to be disillusionment, sometimes in childhood, sometimes as in Uncles occurring later in life. Probably it is best dipped into rather than read all the way through in one go.