The very last words printed inside Margaret Atwoodâs new novel, The Heart Goes Last, appropriately come straight from the heart. âMy special thanks to Graeme Gibson,â she writes, referring to her long-time partner, âwho, though always an inspiration, did not inspire any of the characters in this book. And thatâs a good thing.â
A sardonic wink anyone who just finished her latest book will understand; The Heart Goes Last is peopled by the kind of of fatally flawed, pitiable remnants of humanity we all secretly fear to see in ourselves. Thereâs no Offred in this novel, not even a Snowman. If youâre looking for a hero, look elsewhere.
Instead, our protagonists, Stan and Charmaine, a young married couple, open the novel bickering their way through a horrific regional depression thatâs left them sleeping in their car and subsisting on instant coffee. They have to move frequently at night, woken up by desperate vagrants or drug addicts trying to break into their vehicular home. Charmaine scrapes in a tiny income as a bartender, while Stan hasnât been able to find a job since they lost their stable, middle-class gigs in the crash.
Then, a ray of light: Charmaine sees a TV ad for a community where those most affected by the economic climate -- the homeless, the unwillingly jobless -- can come find a fresh start, not to mention abundant food, a cozy home, and a safe community. Charmaine and Stan, as well as two sex workers who work at Charmaineâs bar (literally, they entertain customers in the corners), pile onto the shuttle sent for curious new recruits and enter Consilience, bursting with optimism. Despite warnings from Stanâs delinquent brother, Conor, that those who enter may not leave, Stan, determined to provide for his wife, agrees to sign on for all that Consilience demands.
The system, like pretty much all systems, is no free lunch. After the free lunch, at least. The motto of Consilience, âDO TIME NOW, BUY TIME FOR OUR FUTURE,â isnât figurative. Stan, Charmaine and all the denizens of Consilience spend alternate months as inmates at Positron, a comfortable prison that generates enough employment to keep the townâs economy stable. During those alternate months, an alternate person lives in their house, using their sofa and kitchen table and bed.
 At first, this seems like a small price to pay to the couple, who are fresh off months in a cramped car. The prison is clean and humane; the food is plentiful; everyone has everything they need. Theyâre assigned to jobs that suit their interests -- when in Positron every other month, Charmaine, a former nursing home worker, works in a mysterious medical capacity.Â
But they quickly grow restless in their safe, conflict-free bubble. Innocent Charmaine falls into a torrid affair with a man sheâs not even allowed to see. Stan becomes moody, gruff and frustrated with his wifeâs bland, blonde softness. Suddenly, Consilience seems to be bringing out the worst in these two utterly normal, nice people, and when the situation takes a shocking turn, their plight only becomes darker and more desperate.
Atwood sketches Stan and Charmaine empathetically, but sheâs also unrelenting, cataloging their selfish desires, hypocritical justifications, and weakness in the face of temptation or coercion. Theyâre normal, and yet often loathsome, and the peripheral characters in the novel -- except for an often-sneered-at sex worker friend of Charmaineâs -- show equally little pure moral feeling or courage.
That doesnât mean thereâs no salvation to be found, but it wonât come from a heroic ideal. Sometimes, the only hope is that selfish interests and human weaknesses will work to the good, as if by accident. Atwoodâs clear-eyed depiction of a far-too-believable dystopia explodes our current problems with mass incarceration and substitutes for human intimacy, but also refuses to excuse our individual human failings on some faceless fascist state. We may be headed for a dystopic future, but no matter where we end up, weâll be pretty damn good at messing things up for our own greedy reasons. Humans, Atwood suggests, are nothing if not consistent.
The Bottom Line:
Atwood will always be her own best competition, but The Heart Goes Last doesnât need to surpass The Handmaidâs Tale to be a gripping, psychologically acute portrayal of our own future gone totally wrong, and the eternal constant of flawed humanity.Â
What other reviewers think:
NPR: "Her latest novel, The Heart Goes Last, flips her usual script, to surreal but disappointing comic effect."
The New York Times Book Review: "What keeps The Heart Goes Last fresh, as with the rest of Atwoodâs recent work, is that while it revisits earlier themes of her oeuvre, it never replicates. Rather, it reads like an exploration continued, with new surprises, both narratively and thematically, to be discovered."
The Guardian: "The Heart Goes Last, originally written as an ebook serial, is a jarring, rewardingly strange piece of work."
Who wrote it?
If you donât know who Margaret Atwood is by 2015, you may be beyond help. Here are a few highlights to jog your memory: She wrote the modern classic The Handmaidâs Tale, as well as the Booker Prize-winning The Blind Assassin.
Who will read it?
Fans of Margaret Atwood, and all readers who are drawn to speculative fiction that takes a dark dive into our own worst human tendencies.
Opening lines:
âSleeping in the car is cramped. Being a third-hand Honda, itâs no palace to begin with. If it was a van theyâd have more room, but fat chance of affording one of those, even back when they thought they had money. Stan says theyâre lucky to have any kind of a car at all, which is true, but their luckiness doesnât make the car any bigger.â
Notable passage:
ââTired of living in your car?â he says to her. Really, straight to her! It canât be, because how would he even know she exists, but it feels like that. He smiles, such an understanding smile. âOf course you are! You didnât sign up for this. You had other dreams. You deserve better.â Oh yes, breathes Charmaine. Better! Itâs everything she feels.â
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by Margaret Atwood
Nan A. Talese, $26.95
Published Sept. 29, 2015
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