Elaine Risley, a painter, returns to Toronto to find herself overwhelmed by her past. Memories of childhood - unbearable betrayals and cruelties - surface relentlessly, forcing her to confront the spectre of Cordelia, once her best friend and tormentor, who has haunted her for forty years.

Elaine Risley, a painter, returns to Toronto to find herself overwhelmed by her past. Memories of childhood - unbearable betrayals and cruelties - surface relentlessly, forcing her to confront the spectre of Cordelia, once her best friend and tormentor, who has haunted her for forty years.

'Not since Graham Greene has a novelist captured so forcefully the relationship between school bully and victim...Atwood's games are played, exquisitely, by little girls' LISTENER An exceptional novel from the winner of the 2000 Booker Prize

I read this when I was about sixteen and remember its menace. It is about the potential toxicity in female friendships, which is a contentious issue. Atwood is never pigeonholed, she's wry and has a poet's eye -- Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist

Not since Graham Greene or William Golding has a novelist captured so forcefully the relationship between school bully and victim...Atwood's power games are played, exquisitely, by little girls ― LISTENER

Irrestistible...This book is about life for all of us. She is one of our finest novelists. Read it ― THE TIMES

Atwood's taut and exquisite use of language makes all her books irresistable... ― THE WEEK

Margaret Atwood charts the psychological process of memory as compulsion and memory as a healing act through the character of Elaine Risley, an artist who returns to her home town of Toronto for a retrospective of her work. Elaine's visit triggers though ― - Chris Kellett, From 500 Great Books by Women, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW