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This was my first foray into Atwood's short fiction, and it's obviously a format she excels at just as much as novels. I appreciated the thread that ran through the collection: Most of the stories are set in Canadian wilderness, the ones that aren't take place in Toronto, and several of them contain fictionalized portrayals of Atwood's Canadian literature contemporaries. The themes she explores are both grand and mundane, but always incredibly relatable on a human level: Disillusionment, the passage of time, missed connections, the unpredictability of life. But no matter how ordinary the subject matter, her metaphors are often very extravagant, and each of the stories' endings packed a punch, with some gorgeous, revealing prose skirting close to the line into poetry.

While each story was great on its own, they were a bit of the same, and after about halfway I noticed a sort of... recurring structure that went beyond a simple similarity in theme. Time jumps across several decades were common, the stories often featured middle-aged female protagonists looking back at their younger selves, and she even used very similar metaphors a few times (for instance, two stories feature women reflecting back on a dead relationship, while an unrelated dead body is unearthed in their surroundings). While I don't think this had an impact on my enjoyment of the collection as a whole, I did notice that I rated the first half higher than the second, so perhaps the novelty did wear off. It may also be more correct to refer to these as "vignettes" rather than "stories", because for the most part, there is very little plot going on—the non-endings may leave a lot of people unsatisfied—and the focus lies on the protagonists' memories and introspection.

True Trash · ★★★★
What an excellently crafted story. It's not until the time-jump towards the end that it starts taking shape, and changes from a coming-of-age story set in a summer camp to something more, a real-life True Romance book story and exploration of the Madonna/whore dichotomy with all its nuances.

Hairball · ★★★★�
This story essentially looks at the link between what's seen as "disgusting" about female bodies, and their violation of accepted societal roles. The description of the benign ovarian cyst the protagonist takes home in a jar of formaldehyde to exhibit on her mantelpiece was "gross" enough to drive my partner from the room when I read it aloud, further proving Atwood's point.

Isis in Darkness · ★★�
In this story set over several decades, a middle-aged Professor, who has long since given up writing poetry, finds new inspiration once he begins piecing together the life of eccentric poetess Selena, whom he'd had a crush on as a student. Selena is based on an actual person, Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen.

The Bog Man · ★★★★
On the surface, a melodramatic little tale, noteworthy because it was first published in Playboy, which seems at such odds with Atwood's personal philosophy. It tells the story of a grad student and her affair with her much older, married tutor... someone she's enthralled by at first, but who quickly loses his charm, and is ultimately just a fading ghost in her narrative. A hidden message to the objectified women posing in the magazine's centerfolds?

Death by Landscape · ★★★★½
An old, well-off widow keeps paintings of landscapes in her apartment, although they fill her with unease. She is haunted by nature and wilderness ever since her childhood friend disappeared in the woods while on a canoe trip, and despite not being to blame, she's lived with the grief and guilt all her life. A story about how money can't buy happiness, and how a tragic loss can go on to haunt an entire life when not coped with.

Uncles · ★★★★½
A powerful story about a young female journalist who is given her big break by an older male coworker she considers a mentor and friend. She proceeds to have a stellar career in radio and TV, until he publishes a memoir painting her in horrible light. This was one of my very favorites, and it resonated with me despite never having been in this position, it just rings true. Was it revenge on his part, because an attractive young woman succeeded were he didn't, or did she remember her entire life wrong?

The Age of Lead · ★★�
This stream of consciousness piece alternates between the protagonist's reminiscences of her recently deceased friend, and the excavation of a body preserved in ice from the Franklin Expedition in a TV program she happens to be watching. She reflects on consequences that plunge order into chaos, with pollution and its ultimate consequence, death, being a major theme.

Weight · ★★�
A middle-aged woman pays tribute to her best friend, gruesomely murdered by her husband, by raising money for a shelter for battered women. It's the shortest story included, and the narrative is interjected with alternative meanings for words ("battered: covered in slime, then dipped into hell").

Wilderness Tips · ★★★�
A foreigner immigrated after the war has made his fortune with shady business dealings. This story explores the relationships between him and three sisters and a brother from the family he married into.

Hack Wednesday · ★★½
A story about a middle-aged newspaper columnist and her marriage to an eco-warrior. Overall, a disappointing closer, and my least favorite if I had to pick one, because I didn't truly get it—I feel like you'd need to be acquainted with Canadian 80's politics to fully understand all references and parallels she was drawing.