Search - Lady Oracle

Any book by Margaret Atwood is worth the trouble, and Lady Oracle is no exception. Somewhat uneven and not as highly polished as, for example, The Handmaid's Tale, this tale of a woman who repeatedly reinvents herself -- from morbidly obese teenager, to young drifter, to closeted writer, to wife, to mistress, to celebrity, to fugitive -- leaving a trail of lies and confusion in her wake, is funny, poignant, lyrical and at times as frustrating as its imaginative but overly passive heroine who refuses to take responsibility for her actions right down to the bittersweet and ironic end.

Joan Foster is a secret writer of Gothic romances. When her outrageously feminist book, Lady Oracle, becomes a bestseller, everything in her life changes.

Strange book, somewhat disjointed, and a bit dated in one of the plotlines (especially in these security conscious days).

From the back of the book:

Joan Foster is a secret writer of Gothic romances. When her outrageously feminist book, Lady Oracle, becomes a bestseller, everything in her life changes. To escape her deteriorating marriage, her affair with an artist, and the ccriminal urges of a fan, Joan embarks on an act that is at once her own death and begins a new life.

I am a great admirer of Margaret Atwood's writing. This story is one of her best!