The structure of this novel is fascinating. The principal thread holding it together is a first person narration by the novel’s central character, Iris Chase. In her old age she writes a memoir for her grand-daughter. Her narrative recalls memories of her childhood and the early years of her unhappy marriage to a Toronto businessman, Richard Griffen. She also describes her present-day life in Port Ticonderoga, her Canadian home-town, dependent on the goodwill of her friend Myra for her everyday needs. Interspersed with this narrative is the text of a novel, The Blind Assassin, apparently written by Iris’s sister Laura, and published posthumously just after the end of the second world war. The Blind Assassin itself contains a third narrative, a pulp science fantasy story – and it is this story which is the tale of the eponymous blind assassin. This might sound an overly complex structure, but it is easy to follow once you understand the conventions Atwood uses to signal which of the stories we are being told.

Intertwined narratives of this kind are not that new or innovative – A S Byatt’s 1990 Possession does something quite similar. What is so striking about this novel is the way Atwood draws together the threads of her stories and step by step reveals the truth underlying the initial presentation. It will come as no surprise to hear that Iris is an unreliable narrator and it is the contrast between her account and her sister’s novel, slowly revealed to be based on real life, which allows a truth to emerge. Again, this concept of there being a ‘true’ narrative hiding behind the lies and misrepresentations offered by the narrator is not entirely new, but it is done with considerable skill here.

Atwood uses one other device to drive the narrative. Key moments of the story are revealed through newspaper stories. We are told about the premature deaths of central characters. The novel therefore becomes a mystery story – we are less interested in what happens, but why, and how the events are related to one another.

The temptation in reviews of this kind is to take a retrospective view of the events of the novel and to flatten them out – to present them in a linear chronological fashion, whereas the presentation within the novel is complex and at times even chaotic. So if I were to tell you the story of the Chase sisters, their wealthy manufacturing family, Iris’s unhappy marriage to Toronto manufacturing tycoon Richard Griffen, etc, it would all be true, but it would give a distorted version of the novel. Sometimes such summaries are useful, when it is hard to follow the plot or where there is uncertainty about some of the detail (this is particularly true of those novels spanning generations where everyone seems to have at least three different interchangeable names!). But here I think I will pass – plot summaries are easy to find online if required, but would reduce this novel to a story, which would be reductive and misleading.

I found it interesting to compare this novel in all its complexity to Atwood’s 1972 novel Surfacing, It clearly demonstrates her growth as a novelist – while Surfacing is a convincing portrait of one woman’s mental deterioration, the contrast with The Blind Assassin makes it look superficial and incomplete.

I have disagreed with the choices of the Booker judges many times over the years, but this must have been one of the simpler choices they ever had to make.