There is this misconception out there that reviewers like to write bad reviews. Like they get some weird pleasure out of it. Well, maybe that was true for Dorothy Parker, but it definitely is not for me. I hate writing bad reviews. So today’s review of Margaret Atwood’s new novel, The Heart Goes Last, is not fun for me…. Still I hope the review is fun to listen to.

You can listen to my review here: http://wkar.org/post/book-review-margaret-atwoods-heart-goes-last

If you would rather read my review, you can do so below.

Hey, did you know Current State has a podcast? If you subscribe, you can download episodes and segments (and you can find me every other Thursday). Here is a link to find it on iTunes- https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wkar-fm-current-state/id594609653?mt=2

If you want to check out my other book reviews for WKAR’s Current State, you can do so via links on this page. 

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The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

The most important thing in books today is not a great twist, an original character, or even a groundbreaking style. It’s a name. If you are one of the lucky few wildly popular authors, you have a built in audience. And you’re able to make mistakes that would send less famous authors to the bargain bin. Sadly, Margaret Atwood flaunts this fact in her new novel The Heart Goes Last.

Like most literary readers, I was excited when I saw Atwood’s name on the book. The Canadian author is one of the most important voices in literature around today. And The Heart Goes Last starts off with a great premise. The financial market has busted. The lower and middle classes are wiped out, leaving everything in the hands of the one percent. Stan and Charmaine are living out of their car. They struggle to find any work until they get the chance to move into a new community.  But there’s a catch. For half of the year they get a nice house and a nice job; for the other six months, they have to live in a prison, existing in a form of modern-day slavery. The possibilities are rich for another dystopian masterpiece at the start of the book, but then everything changes.

Almost out of the blue, The Heart Goes Last becomes a sexual thriller. Stan and Charmaine are both having affairs. Stan is sleeping with a woman named Jocelyn who is an important member of the community and is the wife of the person Charmaine is seeing. Stan’s affair isn’t consensual. He’s forced to take part in it, for fear of being removed from the facility or killed. That also sounds like a good book, but then the book shifts again. Now, we’re in a black comedy set in Las Vegas. Stan is hiding out and working as an Elvis impersonator. He is on a mission and his partner is a former prostitute who is sexually attracted to a teddy bear. Were you able to keep up with me?

One of the things Atwood is known for is her feminist stance. Her most famous novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, was seen by readers as an argument for reproductive rights. But in this novel, her gender arguments are a lot less clear. Charmaine wants to be taken by a man, controlled sexually, while at the same time during the day she is administrating death in the prison. A strange connection that is never really resolved or explained. And then there is Jocelyn. Atwood seems to present her as a hero, yet she’s coercing Stan into sleeping with her. And don’t get me started on the woman with the teddy bear. This one is going to have literary scholars scratching their heads for decades to come.

Here is the thing: I don’t think this mess of a book would have even been published if Margaret Atwood’s name wasn’t on the manuscript. And I am very certain I would not have kept reading The Heart Goes Last if it was a less well-known author. Names have power in the market and on readers. This book, like all of her others, will find success while better books by unknowns disappear. Shakespeare may have said that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but sadly this smelly work is one best left in the garden, no matter which name is attached to it.

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New book! New book! New book!

My latest novel Permanent Spring Showers was just published by 5 Prince Books. You can find out more about my novel as well as my other books (including A Jane Austen Daydream and My Problem With Doors) and grab a copy via my author page on Amazon.com here.