1st Edition

Margaret Atwood: Crime Fiction Writer The Reworking of a Popular Genre

By Jackie Shead Copyright 2015
232 Pages
by Routledge

232 Pages
by Routledge

232 Pages
by Routledge

Exploring how Margaret Atwood’s fiction reimagines the figure of the detective and the nature of crime, Jackie Shead shows how the author radically reworks the crime fiction genre. Shead focuses on Surfacing, Bodily Harm, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake and selected short fiction, showing the ways in which Atwood’s protagonists are confronted by their own collusion in hegemonic... Read more

Contents:



Preface



Introduction



1 Margaret Atwood and the Crime Fiction Genre



2 Surfacing: The Detective Murder Mystery



3 Bodily Harm: The Game of Clue and the Spy Thriller



4 Alias Grace: The Cold Case and the Doomed Detective



5 The Blind Assassin: Conspiracy and Confession



6 Payback and Selected Fiction: Reckoning, Redress, Retribution



7 The Metafictive Detective Story



8 Margaret Atwood and Post-Colonial Crime Fiction



Conclusion

Biography

Jackie Shead received her PhD in English Literature from the University of Bristol. She has lectured at colleges in Exeter and Bristol and has published many articles in The English Review.

"In engaging closely with themes and story structure, Shead’s is a valuable contribution, to scholarship on crime fiction, and also on Atwood. She crucially draws, out the importance of language too, a close analysis of which is needed for a fuller, appreciation of the experience of reading such novels." - Christiana Gregoriou, University of Leeds, UK