Review: Stone Mattress
Stone Mattress collects several of Margaret Atwood’s recent short stories. The collection seems a lot like a series of etudes. In the notes she mentions that several are from stunt collections – authors produce works within loose but binding constraints. Etudes are often interesting, but rarely satisfying. So it goes here.
The collection certainly has its enjoyable passages. This is Margaret Atwood, after all. every story has at least one passage that is worth reading the whole story for, even if the passage is taken in isolation. Most of the works do considerably better than that, having some structural or thematic points of interest that are unexpected at the outset.
Still, these stories feel fluffier than Atwood’s long fiction. Worth it if you like to see a great writer noodling around on the keyboard.
Recommended.