#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
“This snapshot collection is a study of memory, to be cherished not just as an acute portrayal of family life, with all its possibilities and failings, but for revealing a little more of Atwood’s own struggle.” —The Times (UK)
“Vintage Atwood: slyly operatic, playfully tenebrous and a touch of sanguinary.” —Globe and Mail
“Atwood does geography—emotional and physical—better than anyone. . . . Atwood is in top form as she sketches female guises and disguises: daughter, sister, lover, wife.” —Toronto Star
“An elegant, nearly seamless narrative about a woman whose lifetime stretches from the 1930s to the present. The collection is a treat for fans and a worthy introduction for those who have not yet had the pleasure of her company. . . . In Moral Disorder, Atwood travels deep into the expanse of memories and language built up over her writing lifetime and offers a handful of gems to illuminate our times.” —Los Angeles Times
“Margaret Atwood has always been an acute observer of women. . . . Crisp to the senses and compelling.” —The Telegraph (UK)
“Atwood is still a master of the compelling, peculiar portrait of human behavior.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Margaret Atwood balances the apparently random—disorderly—events and memories against the sense we all have that a life as a whole has its own shape, possibly a destiny. . . . This tale, like all these tales, is both grim and delightful, because it is triumphantly understood and excellently written.” —A.S. Byatt, Washington Post Book World
“Nuanced insights and ironies. . . . Atwood is the master of interior monologue—profound understanding is a given in Moral Disorder. . . . Beautifully intricate studies of the strange life story.” —Globe and Mail
“This is a book that, structurally as well as thematically, invites readers to experience the orderly and disorderly beginnings, endings and in betweens of a life.” —Observer
“Her stories are sophisticated, reticent, ornate, stark, supple, stiff, savage or forgiving; they are exactly what she wants them to be. They are stories from the prime of life.”
—Times Literary Supplement
“Atwood’s meticulous stories exert a powerful centrifugal force, pulling the reader into a whirl of droll cultural analysis and provocative emotional truths. Gimlet-eyed, gingery, and impishly funny, Atwood dissects the inexorable demands of family, the persistence of sexism, the siege of old age, and the complex temperaments of other species (the story about the gift horse is to die for). Shaped by a Darwinian perspective, political astuteness, autobiographical elements, and a profound trust in literature, Atwood’s stories evoke humankind’s disastrous hubris and phenomenal spirit with empathy and bemusement.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Crisp, vivid detail and imagery and a rich awareness of the unity of human generations, people and animals, and Nell’s own exterior and inmost selves, make Moral Disorder one of Atwood’s most accessible and engaging works yet.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Atwood at her slyest and sweetest. There really is nobody like her.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian
“Atwood [has an] impressive command of the art of short fiction. . . . Atwood’s approach, although minimalist, is powerful and her protagonist’s emotional history is a puzzle impatient to be unscrambled. . . . Atwood’s richly layered approach lends itself to the telling of truths. The events she sketches linger on the edge of revelations and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. The stories shift, with ease, from youth to age, from brash certainty to the moral ambiguity that defines her characters’ lives. . . . Skilfully crafted stories.” —London Free Press
“An intriguing patchwork of poignant episodes. . . . Atwood provides a memorable mosaic of domestic pain and the surface tension of a troubled family.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A model of distillation, precision, clarity and detail. . . . Within the collection's exceptional unity she explores the variety and flexibility of the short story.” —The Independent
