Iris and Laura are the pampered but isolated children of a button manufacturer. Unraveling why her sister drove off a bridge at 25, and why she is still consumed by guilt and bitterness half a century later, Iris pens this 521-page letter to her estranged granddaughter. Interspersed with Iris' own words are newspaper clips and vignettes through which Atwood also lets the story unfold. A bleak honeymoon follows. This family saga is sketched with Atwood's trademark dark humor and deft hand.
War is good for the button trade.
They're blown to pieces, they sink into the ground, they go up in flames. The war takes two of the Chase boys and irreparably damages the third, but it makes the family rich. And this money, insidious, corrosive but empowering to the family, ultimately makes Iris herself powerless. One is Laura's posthumously published novel of dystopia, the futuristic story of a city's demise at the hands of a blind assassin and his mute lover. Perhaps I believe, in some childish, faith-filled corner of myself, that Walter might yet take out his pliers and his ratchet set and do the same for me.