Atwood triumphs with these dazzling, personal stories in her first collection since Wilderness Tips.

In these ten interrelated stories Atwood traces the course of a life and also the lives intertwined with it, while evoking the drama and the humour that colour common experiences — the birth of a baby, divorce and remarriage, old age and death. With settings ranging from Toronto, northern Quebec, and rural Ontario, the stories begin in the present, as a couple no longer young situate themselves in a larger world no longer safe. Then the narrative goes back in time to the forties and moves chronologically forward toward the present.

In “The Art of Cooking and Serving,” the twelve-year-old narrator does her best to accommodate the arrival of a baby sister. After she boldly declares her independence, we follow the narrator into young adulthood and then through a complex relationship. In “The Entities,” the story of two women haunted by the past unfolds. The magnificent last two stories reveal the heartbreaking old age of parents but circle back again to childhood, to complete the cycle.

By turns funny, lyrical, incisive, tragic, earthy, shocking, and deeply personal, Moral Disorder displays Atwood’s celebrated storytelling gifts and unmistakable style to their best advantage. This is vintage Atwood, writing at the height of her powers.


From the Hardcover edition.

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The instant #1 national bestseller

“Atwood’s meticulous stories exert a powerful centrifugal force, pulling the reader into a whirl of droll cultural analysis and provocative emotional truths. Gimlet-eyed, gingery, and impishly funny, Atwood dissects the inexorable demands of family, the persistence of sexism, the siege of old age, and the complex temperaments of other species (the story about the gift horse is to die for). Shaped by a Darwinian perspective, political astuteness, autobiographical elements, and a profound trust in literature, Atwood’s stories evoke humankind’s disastrous hubris and phenomenal spirit with empathy and bemusement.”
— Booklist (starred review)

“Crisp, vivid detail and imagery and a rich awareness of the unity of human generations, people and animals, and Nell’s own exterior and inmost selves, make Moral Disorder one of Atwood’s most accessible and engaging works yet.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“This snapshot collection is a study of memory, to be cherished not just as an acute portrayal of family life, with all its possibilities and failings, but for revealing a little more of Atwood’s own struggle.”
— The Times

“Atwood [has an] impressive command of the art of short fiction. . . . Atwood’s approach, although minimalist, is powerful and her protagonist’s emotional history is a puzzle impatient to be unscrambled. . . . Atwood’s richly layered approach lends itself to the telling of truths. The events she sketches linger on the edge of revelations and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. The stories shift, with ease, from youth to age, from brash certainty to the moral ambiguity that defines her characters’ lives. . . . Skilfully crafted stories.”
— London Free Press

“An intriguing patchwork of poignant episodes. . . . Atwood provides a memorable mosaic of domestic pain and the surface tension of a troubled family.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Nuanced insights and ironies. . . . Atwood is the master of interior monologue — profound understanding is a given in Moral Disorder. . . . Beautifully intricate studies of the strange life story.”
— Globe and Mail

“Vintage Atwood: slyly operatic, playfully tenebrous and a touch of sanguinary. . . .”
— Globe and Mail

“Atwood does geography — emotional and physical — better than anyone. . . . Atwood is in top form as she sketches female guises and disguises: daughter, sister, lover, wife.”
— Toronto Star

“This is a book that, structurally as well as thematically, invites readers to experience the orderly and disorderly beginnings, endings and in betweens of a life.”
— Observer

“A model of distillation, precision, clarity and detail. . . . Within the collection's exceptional unity she explores the variety and flexibility of the short story in a manner not unlike Alice Munro’s in her longer narratives.”
— The Independent

“An elegant, nearly seamless narrative about a woman whose lifetime stretches from the 1930s to the present. The collection is a treat for fans and a worthy introduction for those who have not yet had the pleasure of her company. . . . In Moral Disorder, Atwood travels deep into the expanse of memories and language built up over her writing lifetime and offers a handful of gems to illuminate our times.”
— Los Angeles Times

“Margaret Atwood has always been an acute observer of women. . . . Crisp to the senses and compelling. . . . I was gripped throughout.”
— Telegraph

“Atwood is still a master of the compelling, peculiar portrait of human behavior.”
— Entertainment Weekly

“Classic Atwood. Unforgettable.”
— January Magazine, Best Books of 2006

“Powerful and distinctive.”
— Times Literary Supplement

“A fractured novel of particularly haunting and engaging beauty. . . .”
— Books in Canada

“Margaret Atwood balances the apparently random — disorderly — events and memories against the sense we all have that a life as a whole has its own shape, possibly a destiny. . . .This tale, like all these tales, is both grim and delightful, because it is triumphantly understood and excellently written.”
— A.S. Byatt, Washington Post Book World

“Atwood at her slyest and sweetest. There really is nobody like her.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, Guardian

“Ingenious and perceptive. . . deserves to become a quiet classic.”
— Spectator

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Visit Margaret Atwood's Website

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Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939, and grew up in northern Quebec and Ontario, and later in Toronto. She has lived in numerous cities in Canada, the U.S., and Europe.

She is the author of more than forty books — novels, short stories, poetry, literary criticism, social history, and books for children. Atwood’s work is acclaimed internationally and has been published around the world. Her novels include The Handmaid’s Tale and Cat’s Eye — both shortlisted for the Booker Prize; The Robber Bride, winner of the Trillium Book Award and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award; Alias Grace, winner of the prestigious Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy, and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize and a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and Oryx and Crake, a finalist for The Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Award, the Orange Prize, and the Man Booker Prize. Her most recent books of fiction are The Penelopiad, The Tent, and Moral Disorder. She is the recipient of numerous honours, such as The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence in the U.K., the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature in the U.S., Le Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and she was the first winner of the London Literary Prize. She has received honorary degrees from universities across Canada, and one from Oxford University in England.

Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.


From the Hardcover edition.

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