The Blind Assassin - a dramatization of the novel

Reviewed: May 11, 2006
By: Margaret Atwood
Publisher: BTC Audiobooks
3 CDs, 3 hours, $29.95

This is a radio play rather than just a reading, and the cast of twenty has done an admirable job with Michael O”Brien’s script from Atwood’s book.

This novel, the memoir of an aging Iris Chase, who is reflecting on the events which led up to her sister Laura’s death in a car accident, was awarded the Booker Prize when it came out. Critics who should have known better were mesmerized by the Weird Tales style science fantasy novel within the novel, not seeming to get the point that the gap between the oral story and the printed pulp magazine version is a bit like the gaps between the hopes and realities in the relationships revealed in this novel.

At any rate this is a fine rendition of the story which managed to get most of the important parts into the three hour production.

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