'Stone Mattress' by Margaret Atwood

'Dark and witty tales from the gleefully inventive Margaret Atwood. Witty verve, imaginative inventiveness and verbal sizzle vivify every page'

Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. An elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. A woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire, and a crime committed long ago is revenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. 

'Stone Mattress, a collection of nine acerbic, mischievous, gulpable short stories, addresses themes that will resonate with anyone familiar with Atwood's writing. Atwood's gimlet eye and sharp tongue are turned on the ageing process to painfully accurate effect'

Harper's Bazaar

The first three tales - 'Alphinland', 'Revenant' and 'Dark Lady' - revolve around a love triangle. The recently widowed Constance is the author of a globally successful fantasy series, Gavin is the bile-fuelled poet that Constance dated during her university years, and Marjorie is the "other woman", outwardly dark but not irredeemable. 'Lusus Naturae' is a stand-alone tale of a girl whose genetic abnormality makes her monstrous in appearance; the tone of this story is Gothic, fairy-tale, and myth all wrapped up together. 'The Freeze-Dried Groom' follows Sam, an antique furniture forger who accidentally discovers a frozen wedding in a storage unit acquired at auction. All that's missing is the bride. 'I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth' revisits the characters of Atwood's 1993 work The Robber Bride. 'The Dead Hand Loves You' looks at Jack, the rancorous writer of an internationally acclaimed horror classic that is a loosely-veiled attack on his former housemates. 'Stone Mattress' describes Verna's long-nourished desire for vengeful justice. 'Torching the Dusties' deals with Wilma, slowly losing her grip on reality in a retirement community, while reality loses its mind around her.

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher, environmental activist, and, in my opinion, one of the greatest people of the modern age. Her works (of which there are many) encompass many themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, "power politics", and sexual politics. The Handmaid's Tale (1985) can best be described as 'speculative fiction', describing a frightening dystopian future following the Second American Civil War where a totalitarian society subjects fertile women or "Handmaids" into child-bearing servitude. Stone Mattress (2014) is a short fiction collection of "nine wicked tales", offering a sharp social commentary on how humanity copes with ageing and death. Other themes encompassed in the book include nostalgia and how memories can become twisted as time passes (nearly all the characters look back on their lives from a position of old age); revenge and possession; tales about tales (epic fantasy, love poetry, pulp horror); and blurring the boundaries of reality (gold flakes on parchment skin transfigure women into phantasmagorical creatures while a con-man's thoughts render him either a beast or a corpse). The view throughout the tales, rather than being bleak, is salutary, thanks to Atwood's sly and witty prose. The reader comes away satisfied and stimulated. 

What I really enjoyed about this book is the marvellous blend of realism and folklore. Ordinary happenings of everyday life (going out to the corner shop to buy supplies for a snow storm, a car not starting, a cruise holiday) are transformed by Atwood's wry sense of humour into starting points for unusual happenings (a haunting voice, a fatal discovery, murderous intentions). Furthermore, Atwood offers social commentary, mainly on the culture of the 1950s-60s, and how attitudes towards relationships and success have changed since then.

I have to confess that I have not read many of Atwood's books apart from The Handmaid's Tale, Dancing Girls (1977), and The Penelopiad (2005). I love her trenchant style, her use of classical mythology and fairy tale genres, her love of her native Canada, and her emphasis on telling stories of women. I highly recommend this book as a good start for anyone who has not read her work before, and as a treat to anyone who knows and loves her.