Book Review: Old Babes in the Wood: Stories by Margaret Atwood

My Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Old Babes in the Wood: Stories by Margaret Atwood is a collection of fifteen short stories that feature a variety of themes and genres. A few of these stories have been published in the past among which are “Impatient Griselda” (featured in The Decameron Project, 2020), the title story “Old Babes in the Woods (published in New Yorker Magazine, April 2021), and the short story “My Evil Mother” (Amazon Original Stories, 2022).

Divided into three segments, Parts I and III (a total of seven stories) feature Nell and Tig, a married couple with the latter segment focusing on an older Nell as she adjusts to being alone after Tig’s demise.

My ratings for the stories in the first section are as follows:

In “First Aid” (3/5), A domestic mishap triggers Nell’s memories of a time when Nell and Tig were training in First Aid. Nell expresses skepticism on whether they would have reacted differently had they possessed this knowledge in the different risky situations they encountered in the past. “Two Scorched Men” (2.5/5) revolves around Nell and Tig’s friendship with John, an Irishman, and Francois, both of whom served in the War and whom they met vacationing in the French countryside while renting John’s home. In “Morte de Smudgie” (3.5/5), Nell grieves the loss of their cat Smudgie uniquely, reimagining Tennyson’s “Morte d’Arthur with Smudgie as the central character.

While I did enjoy Atwood’s prose and the range of emotions depicted in this section, I wasn’t quite as engaged as I was with subsequent sections.

Part II features a collection of stories that vary between dark humor, sci-fi and fantasy and historical fiction. “My Evil Mother” (5/5) is an ode to complicated mother–daughter relationships, with our teenage protagonist struggling to figure out whether her mother is plain “evil”, practices witchcraft or is just troubled as the years go by. “The Dead Interview” (5/5) features the author Margaret Atwood in conversation with the late George Orwell with whom she communicates through a friend acting as a medium. One of my favorites in this collection! Impatient Griselda (4.5/5) introduces us to an alien (closely resembling an octopus) who is in charge of a group of humans in quarantine, while a plague rages outside. The alien decides to engage his charges by telling them the story of “an ancient Earth Story”, “Impatient Griselda”. In “Bad Teeth” (3/5) Two women who have been friends for decades reflect on the ups and downs in their friendship over the years. “Freeforall” (4/5) takes us into a dystopian future where the population has been ravaged by STDs leading to an increase in the practice of arranged marriages between those deemed to be “pure” facilitated by designated “Houses” led by individuals who are in charge of all procedural formalities relating to the same. In Metempsychosis (5/5) an unfortunate encounter with exterminator results in a snail’s soul jumping directly from snail to human, inhabiting the body of a female bank employee. What follows is how this former snail observes and adjusts to its new life. Airborne: A Symposium (3/5) features a group of aging women, former academics with strong feminist leanings, who meet to discuss a project. “Death By Clamshell” (5/5), is the fictional first-person account of ancient mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria as she shares the details of how she was executed in public while also shedding a light on significant events from her life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this segment which was characterized by exceptional imaginative storytelling as we have come to expect from the author. Themes range from pandemics and dystopian futures, magical realism to friendship, feminism and aging.

Among the stories in the third section, I found the stories “Widows”(5/5) and “Wooden Box”(5/5) particularly moving the former written in epistolary format wherein Nell is conflicted with how far she should share her true state of mind on being widowed versus writing a perfunctory response to a letter asking after her wellbeing. “Wooden Box” follows a widowed Nell as she is haunted by memories as she sorts through the house and their belongings. In “A Dusty Lunch”(3/5), we get to know more about Tig’s family, his father in particular when Nell unearths letters and papers Tig had inherited from his late father who served in WWII. “Old Babes in the Wood” (4/5) features Nell and her sister Lizzie as they spend time in their family cabin in the woods surrounded by memories of their youth and the days gone by.

Touching upon themes of marriage, family, aging, loss and grief The stories in this section are reflective, insightful, melancholic and nostalgic in tone, emotionally powerful and eloquently penned.

Fans of Margaret Atwood would enjoy this collection. For those who have yet to read anything by this author, this would be a great introduction to her range of storytelling. Overall, this is an impressive collection of stories that will appeal to readers with varied tastes and preferences.

Many thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for the much-appreciated digital review copy of this selection of short stories. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This collection is due to be released on March 07, 2023.