The Year of the Flood

The Year of the Flood

Margaret Atwood's eagerly-awaited new novel The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.

Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners - a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, the preservation of all species, the tending of the Earth, and the cultivation of bees and organic crops on flat rooftops - has long predicted the Waterless Flood. Now it has occured, obliterating most human life. Two women have avoided it: the young trapeze-dancer, Ren, locked into the high-end sex club, Scales and Tails; and former SecretBurgers meat-slinger turned gardener, Toby, barricaded into the luxurious AnooYoo Spa, where many of the treatments are edible.

Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda, or the MaddAddam eco-fighters? Ren's one-time teenage lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the CorpSeCorps, the shadowy and corrupt policing force of the ruling powers ...

Meanwhile, in the natural world, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through a ruined world, singing their devotional hymns and faithful to their creed and to their Saints - Saint Francis Assisi, Saint Rachel Carson and Saint Al Gore among them - what odds for Ren and Toby, and for the human race?

By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most effective.

About Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. In addition to the classic The Handmaid's Tale, her novels include Cat's Eye, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Alias Grace, which won the Premio Mondello in Italy, and The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize. Her most recent novel, Oryx and Crake, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003. She was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature in 2008. Her latest work of non-fiction is Payback. Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto, Canada.

The Year of the Flood
Allen & Unwin
Author: Margaret Atwood
ISBN: 9780747585169
RRP: $45.00