The Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood

Genre: Fiction

Rating:   ★  ★ ★  ★  ★      

Published: 1995

Publisher: Bantam Books

Pages: 528

YO, so I'm actually really exciting to be writing a review for this book since I was SO PUMPED to read it (and had been looking for it for a few months) and no one else I know has read it. I read The Handmaid's Tale* by Margaret Atwood my freshman year (of college), and immediately went on the hunt for this puppy afterwards. Atwood has a reputation as a feminist author, and I would say that I agree with that title. Whereas The Handmaid's Tale is a more dystopic novel (taking place in the fundamentalist Christian state of Gilead), The Robber Bride is a more intimate and modern story that takes place in Canada in the very early 1990s (I'm dating it around 1990, maaaaaybe 1991). 

The Robber Bride focuses on a small group of friends — Tony, Charis and Roz — whose lives have become intwined since college thanks to the bewitching and devastating Zenia. Zenia stole their men, undermined their careers, and effectively threatened their Way Of Life before disappearing into thin air. The last the trio had heard of her was her death, and after attending her funeral, considered to be a ghastly warning from the past. Tony, Charis and Roz have since begun a slow healing process, trying to move on from the damage that Zenia has caused. But one day, while the three women are out for lunch, who should walk into the restaurant but Zenia — very much alive. What does she want? Why has she come back? And what does she have in store for Tony, Charis and Roz?

The Robber Bride is over five hundred pages long, and I flew threw it. The book is divided into different section, with Tony, Charis and Roz serving as "perspective" narrators for each section. While The Robber Bride detailed Zenia's relationship with the three women, it also detailed the life experiences of Tony, Charis, and Roz, and touched on issues such as mental illness, sexual abuse, divorce, death, and money and class. Personally, I think that Atwood did a fantastic job at juggling the three women's perspectives. While each character's perspective chapter was openly characterized by one of the three women, Atwood maintained her style overall. (I feel like that was a bad explanation, so let me try again: Atwood asserts the characteristic differences of the three women throughout their respective chapters while maintaining a specific writing style throughout. Some very, very tricky writing, I think.)

The Robber Bride continuously reflections on issues relating to gender and power relations in the modern (or post-modern?) era. While Tony, Charis and Roz each lead lives that (I feel) they want to lead (Tony as an academic, Charis as a free spirit, Roz as a businesswoman), they are each constrained by gender roles and expectations. Tony is frustrated that, as a woman, her work relating to military history is taken less seriously. Charis is often at odds with her daughter, a strict by-the-book individual. Roz constantly juggles the difficulties of being a mother, being an executive, and being a "good feminist." 

Zenia, however, does not seem to reflect on such identity politics or issues. Zenia is portrayed by Atwood as a third sex; someone who is able to easily navigate male and female world and roles. Unlike the three women, Zenia isn't boxed in by social expectations, and doesn't seem to be at odds with her gender. Zenia is also, however, not at the beck and call of her sexual appetite as often as the men in The Robber Bride are. It is because of her "third role" that she is presented as a terrifying question and an unpredictable actor to Tony, Charis, and Roz. The Robber Bride doesn't deal very much with topics like gender fluidity and queer identification (and it also only touches upon homosexuality), but does discuss and elaborate upon the choices that women are often forced to make regarding their families, careers, and love lives. 

I'd absolutely recommend The Robber Bride; I thought that it was a super engaging and engrossing read, and that the book's heft ceased to be intimidating once I got into the swing of things. Tony, Charis and Roz are women whose strengths and weaknesses (and vanities) differ greatly from one woman to the next. I enjoyed reading about their relationships with each other as much as I enjoyed speculating on what Zenia was planning.

*The Handmaid's Tale was spooky and thought-provoking and presented a situation I thought to be absolutely terrifying: zero bodily autonomy. (Unfortunately I don't have a review for it; just take my word for it, it's fantastic.)