The Year of the Flood is Canada’s favorite author Margaret Atwood’s newest novel, and a companion piece to the terrific Oryx and Crake. I don’t have much to say about it other than: yes.
Like Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood is a piece of dystopian speculative fiction about a future in which the US has devolved into two distinct types of haves and have-nots: those who are employed by corporations and pharmaceutical companies and live on their compounds and those who are left to fend for themselves in the less desirable and significantly less safe pleebs.
The Year of the Flood is told from the alternating perspectives of Toby and Ren, two women who wound up finding their way into the God’s Gardener’s religious group, whose leader, Adam One (all the heads are designated as Adams and Eves), preaches the coming of a ‘waterless flood.’ Time jumps back and forth throughout the 25 years leading up and and encompassing the flood, which turns out to be a devastating global pandemic that was unleashed by mad scientist type Crake in Oryx and Crake. The ‘flood’ killed most of the world population, save for a few lucky souls (such as Toby and Ren), who for various reasons, were holed up out of germ’s reach during the time of the ‘flood.’
For those of us who loved Oryx and Crake (and there are certainly many), this sequel in no way disappoints. We lead up to and rejoin the bleak future she imagined for us, seeing it–and some of the Oryx and Crake characters–from the different perspective of those in the God’s Gardener’s group. The way Atwood weaves them all together is masterful, and the story is intriguing and cool and sad and hopeful and creepy and just plain old good, just the way a dystopia should be.
If you’ve read Oryx and Crake, run out to get this one. If you haven’t, read Oryx and Crake. Then run out to get this one.
