Life before man (Atwood) 68 (and The edible woman) 23

Life before man has been sitting on the shelf for a while. And to be honest, it could have stayed there a while longer for me. I can imagine that when it was published it might have been more relevant and popular, but reading it now it just seemed dated and lacking in drive. I'm not surprised that this is one of her lesser known books and despite being published early on by Virago, has only been published once. It's the story of three characters - Elizabeth, Nate and Lesje. Elizabeth and Nate are married; Nate and Lesje are having an affair - and essentially describes their relationships. Not really memorable at all. 2*

As I'm posting about Margaret Atwood I thought I should mention one of her other 6 VMCs which I have read (I have read a lot of her novels actually, but just not the VMC ones - Cat's Eye is a particular favourite, along with Alias Grace) - The edible woman. I picked it up for its fantastic title - it was a much more riveting read about a woman named Marian who is gradually losing her grip on reality. It's got two Virago editions, and I own the later one - I love the quirky mirror picture of the earlier edition though.

The simple truth (Hardwick) 262

Hurrah - you'll be happy to hear that my final experience of Hardwick was better than the previous two (here and here). Although, I'm not telling you to rush out and get hold of this one, it was a much better read than the other two.

There are effectively two stories in this novel set in a small town in Iowa; the story of Rudy Peck, a college student who goes on trial for murdering his girlfriend, and that of Joseph Parks and Anita Mitchell who follow the trial and attend the public gallery each day, out of what is really only morbid interest. Joseph and Anita become friends and each day take the proceedings to pieces, and believe that Rudy Peck is innocent. The novel is a playing out of this relationship as well as the trial of Peck. I suppose what hooked me into this novel was reading on to find out whether or not Rudy would be acquited, but I liked the way that Hardwick wrote about Joseph and Anita and their private lives.

Like the other VMC Hardwicks, this has just been published the once with the original green cover. I like the picture which is reminiscent of the story. So that's it for Hardwick for this challenge; she's written other novels but I have to say that I'm not hugely keen to seek them out.

2*