Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales

by Margaret Atwood

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, June 2015

ISBN: 978-0804173506

304 p.p.

Nine Love Letters to Margaret Atwood

It isn’t overly often that a short story collection from any author is better, more desirable, or even competitive with their longer novels. This is not because short stories are inherently bad but I’m sure there has to be some persuading of publishers to forego the bigger sales of a longer novel and at least someone with Atwood’s name-power won’t give a tired marketing team nightmares on how to sell a short story collection in any remotely beneficial way for the parties involved. I’m not sure many authors become break-out stars with a short story collection but Atwood has convinced me that the format really needs to come back into vogue for all writers, not just those lucky few who are name writers. TCJWW always seeks to bring awareness to how women writers can get more of a foothold in the writing community—I think Atwood’s Stone Mattress provides a perfect foundation for saying we need a short story revolution.

I found Atwood late in my life (at least it feels that way) and I started at the beginning with Handmaid’s Tale so I wasn’t sure what to expect from Stone Mattress. Was everything science fiction? Dystopia? I wouldn’t be disappointed if she was always a science fiction writer but also if one’s expectations are at cross purposes with the actuality of the story it is possible to mistake a story’s real beauty for ugliness. I was happy to discover Atwood as I read—that’s what Stone Mattress really is, what it really excels at: a getting-to-know-you with Atwood. She begins with a series of stories that follow, of all things, a fantasy writer and her series. These stories are very self-aware as Atwood's author knows people think her fantasy world is “silly” and worry that she is “crazed” and yet the fans embrace her with open arms, they understand the world completely, and the author does love her eccentric little niche. If Atwood is considering her own path as a writer, it is a tale of acceptance to how it is: not everyone will like you, your first books you may look back on with a sense of bemused embarrassment at rookie mistakes, you fear you will not live long enough to finish…. and you sometimes talk aloud to your fictional creations. In what became a general trend for Stone Mattress’ protagonists, we meet our author when she is old—her hair has gone gray, her husband has died, the adjective “eccentric” is often getting compounded with “senile” and we worry that her children will place her in a home (oddly enough, we wind up in a Senior Home without this particular narrator in it just a few stories later). We have other “fine wine” central characters: an aging Black Widow killer, a woman with a rare disease that both blinds her but allows her to see hallucinations of quaint Lilliputians, another author whose quirky horror series has been the only major success of his life and he comes to consider his own work (and his own deranged capacities) while remembering the birth of the book. While I’m sure that Atwood organized her selections with care, I’m not entirely sure she was conscious that so many of her characters were senior citizens. How self-reflective is it? How much of it is simply an ability (or desire) to put oneself into a particular set of shoes? Maybe this time of her life is at the forefront of her mind and simply bleeds into everything? At any rate, she does it masterfully.

Those who are fans of Atwood’s Robber Bride will be happy to see a sequel in this collection—alas that connection was lost on me and I was left merely considering “I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth” as a sort of Sex and the City gets (even) older: this is what it looks like to have girlfriends as a central part of your social sphere. I would love if those who have read Robber Bride would tell me if they achieved some level of catharsis with this small continuation—but I didn’t find that I needed the background to enjoy the girls anyway. If titles entice you, and they should, the short stories are called "The Dead Hand Loves You," "Lusus Naturae," "I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth," "The Freeze-Dried Groom," "Alphinland," "Revenant," "Torching the Dusties," "Stone Mattress," and "Dark Lady." I imagine that “Dead Hand,” “Stone Mattress,” and “Dusties” would translate beautifully into larger works or films. “Dead Hand” was, for some reason, very reminiscent to me of an Evil Dead aesthetic and those with a love for the 80’s horror genre will find that this suits them seamlessly.

If you love Atwood, it goes without saying that you will find Stone Mattress suits your every Atwood-craving. If you have never had Atwood, or are just coming to her, I think you will get an incredible depth of understanding about how her writing flows, how her characters creep up on you, how she sings to the deepest part of your soul with the simplest phrases… how earnest she is without trying too hard. These stories are soul food, they hit a part of you that you didn’t realize was neglected, and the fact that there are nine stories mean that you have nine times to scratch a delicious itch.

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Margaret Atwood is one of the most awarded female writers in the last thirty years, primarily getting recognition in the science fiction genre, though she also writes poetry (and an opera). Beyond Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood has the popular trilogy of Oryx and Crake, which begins with its namesake novel, progresses to The Year of the Flood, and the recently published MaddAddam. She famously re-wrote The Odyssey from Penelope’s perspective in The Penelopiad. Also popular are Alias Grace, The Robber Bride, and Cat’s Eye. Atwood is a politically active environmentalist and inventor currently living in Toronto.