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The Author

MARGARET ATWOOD was born in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1939. During her childhood she spent many summers in the bush country of northern Ontario and Quebec. Upon graduation from the University of Toronto in 1961, she took her master’s degree from Radcliffe College the following year and went on to pursue doctoral studies at Harvard University.

Novelist and poet, critic and editor, Atwood is one of the most prolific and important writers of contemporary literature. Equally acclaimed as a writer of both fiction and poetry, she devotes much of her creative energy to giving literary shape to the aspirations, fears, and foibles of her society. Her many honours include the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, the Giller Prize for Fiction, the Booker Prize, and several honorary degrees.

Margaret Atwood resides in Toronto, Ontario.

THE NEW CANADIAN LIBRARY

General Editor: David Staines

ADVISORY BOARD Alice Munro W. H. New Guy Vanderhaeghe

Copyright © 1992 by O. W. Toad Ltd. Afterword copyright © 1997 by Rosemary Sullivan

First published in 1992 by Coach House Press New Canadian Library edition 1997

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Atwood, Margaret, 1939– Good bones

(New Canadian library) eISBN: 978-1-55199-550-2

I. Title.

PS8501. T86G86 1997   C813’. 54   C97-930816-x PR9199. 3. A88G86    1997

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

v3. 1

The following dedication appeared in the original edition:

For G. , as always, and for the two Angelas

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Bad News

The Little Red Hen Tells All

Gertrude Talks Back

There Was Once

Unpopular Gals

Let Us Now Praise Stupid Women

The Female Body

In Love With Raymond Chandler

Stump Hunting

Making a Man

Epaulettes

Cold-Blooded

Men at Sea

Alien Territory

Adventure Story

Hardball

My Life as a Bat

Theology

An Angel

Poppies: Three Variations

Homelanding

Third Handed

Death Scenes

Four Small Paragraphs

We Want It All

Dance of the Lepers

Good Bones

Acknowledgements

Afterword

Other Books by This Author

Bad News

THE RED GERANIUMS fluorescing on the terrace, the wind swaying the daisies, the baby’s milk-fed eyes focusing for the first time on a double row of beloved teeth – what is there to report? Bloodlessness puts her to sleep. She perches on a rooftop, her brass wings folded, her head with its coiffure of literate serpents tucked beneath the left one, snoozing like a noon pigeon. There’s nothing to do but her toenails. The sun oozes across the sky, the breezes undulate over her skin like warm silk stockings, her heart beats with the systole and diastole of waves on the breakwater, boredom creeps over her like vines.