Surfacing - Softcover

Margaret Atwood

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0860680649 ISBN 13: 9780860680642

Publisher: Trafalgar Square, 1979

Synopsis

A young woman returns to northern Quebec to the remote island of her childhood, with her lover and two friends, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her father. Flooded with memories, she begins to realise that going home means entering not only another place but another time. As the wild island exerts its elemental hold and she is submerged in the language of the wilderness, she sees that what she is really looking for is her own past.

About this title

From the Back Cover

“One of the most important novels of the twentieth century…utterly remarkable.”
– New York Times Book Review

“Atwood probes emotions with X-ray precision. All in all, it’s an exhilarating performance.”
– Globe and Mail

“A brilliant tour-de-force.”
– Winnipeg Free Press

“Atwood’s powers of observation are disconcertingly acute, combining an ear for the vernacular with an eye for the jugular.”
– Time

“The depth and complexity of Atwood’s critique of contemporary society are stunning.”
– Ms.

“It is excellent in so many ways that one cannot begin to do justice to it in a review. It has to be read and experienced.”
–Margaret Laurence, Quarry

“Margaret Atwood is one of the most intelligent and talented writers to set herself the task of deciphering life in the late twentieth century.”
– Vogue

“In this disturbing book, Margaret Atwood has written a fascinating, sometimes frightening novel about our Canadian landscape, about our paranoia, about what we are and what we are becoming.…Astonishing.”
– Edmonton Journal

“ Surfacing is likely the best piece of fiction produced by Atwood’s generation in North America or anywhere.”
– Canadian Forum

“[Atwood is] a superb storyteller who brings intelligence and wit to bear in a compelling personal vision.”
– Toronto Star

“It is quite simply superb.…She writes with the ease of total acceptance, from right inside the culture, authenticating our experience, holding up a mirror so that the image we get back is not distorted by satire or made unreal by proselytizing…but real.”
– Maclean’s

“The sophistication of its telling, the power of observation and imagination make the book remarkable.…It’s a masterful encounter with the way we live now.”
– Kingston Whig-Standard

From the Inside Flap

Part detective novel, part psychological thriller, "Surfacing is the story of a talented woman artist who goes in search of her missing father on a remote island in northern Quebec. Setting out with her lover and another young couple, she soon finds herself captivated by the isolated setting, where a marriage begins to fall apart, violence and death lurk just beneath the surface, and sex becomes a catalyst for conflict and dangerous choices. "Surfacing is a work permeated with an aura of suspense, complex with layered meanings, and written in brilliant, diamond-sharp prose. Here is a rich mine of ideas from an extraordinary writer about contemporary life and nature, families and marriage, and about women fragmented...and becoming whole.

About this edition

• Publisher: Trafalgar Square
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 0860680649
• ISBN 13: 9780860680642
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200