a review of "The Year of the Flood"

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
(Nan A. Talese, ISBN 978-0385528771)

Adam One, the leader of the quasi-religious eco-cult caller God's Gardeners, had long predicted the coming of a plague, a Waterless Flood that would destroy all human life and as the story begins, it seems that he has been proven right.
We meet our two heroines, the older, tougher Toby and Ren, a worker in an upscale sex club. Both find themselves, through peculiar circumstances, still alive after what turns out to be a bio-engineered virus sweeps through. In the midst of the horror of the dead, each wonders if they are only person alive and yet also fearing who else, what else, might be out there.

As the story progresses, the chapters move back and forth in time and we learn how these two women came to be where they are. Society, in this future that Atwood speculates about, is bizarre and disturbing, maybe most of all because it is not totally unbelievable. There appears to be no government. The Corporations and their brutal security force, the CorpSEcorps, control the more upscale compounds where science and technology and 'progress' have become the new gods, resulting in all sorts of lovely bio-engineered creatures. Like liobams, the cross between a lion and lamb..you know the whole lion lays down with the lamb idea...that looks so cute and fuzzy...until they rip your throat out. Or pigs with human brain tissue. Ok, there have been some problems with some of the experiments.

Outside the compounds you have the pleeblands, violent and lawless, where the cultish God's Gardeners reside yet attempt to rise above it all. Both figuratively and literary, since they live on rooftops, easier to defend, raising their gardens and preaching and planning how to survive the flood that will soon come. We learn the backstories of Toby and Ren, both at times dreadful, sad stories, both tied to the God's Gardeners, and both, in their own ways, showing us how they became survivors. Because that is what they both are, survivors, and in the later part of the book we explore, if not totally resolve, what being a survivor in this new world, this world after the Flood, may mean.

Without question, Atwood writes from a certain ideological point of view and if you have read my reviews before, you might have noticed that I hate a heavy handed, preachy novel. Especially if the views it is preaching differs from my own...lol. But happily, Atwood is a much better writer than that. Everyone, every view, to some degree, is subjected to Atwood's witty and often very amusing treatment. Because yes, this book, while often violent and even gross, is also often very funny and witty. And ultimately, she wraps it all into what I found to be a quite entertaining and compelling story. Also a story with some great characters. A well written, engaging plot, some well defined, affecting characters and the exploration of some interesting questions, all makes for a book that I totally enjoyed. She creates a disturbing and thought provoking image of a future world, an image that may well remain with you long after you have finished enjoying this entertaining book.

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