Moral Disorder

Sarah Robertson is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

A quiet foreboding pervades Moral Disorder, a collection of 11 linked
stories that chronicle of the life of their protagonist, Nell.

In the opening story, an elderly Nell and her husband, Tig, receive
daily doses of bad news in the form of the morning paper. The chaos of
the outside world is reflected in Nell’s terrifying “picture of
[her] future self: wandering the house in the darkness, in my white
nightdress, howling for what I can’t quite remember I’ve lost.” In
the next story, an 11-year-old Nell anxiously awaits the birth of her
sister, Lizzie. In the years ahead, the emotionally unstable Lizzie will
be a continuing source of anxiety for the put-upon Nell—as will
Tig’s imperious first wife, who treats Nell like the hired help
throughout their long and regrettable acquaintance.

The natural world proves just as treacherous and unpredictable as the
people in Nell’s life. After moving to a small farm, she and Tig
experience nature red in tooth and claw, starting with the barred owl
who treats her young to shredded baby ducklings. The ever-resourceful
Nell copes with the darkness and violence of farm life by resolving to
“dispense with sentimentality, and do whatever blood-soaked,
bad-smelling thing had to be done.” Eventually, Nell and Tig return to
city life, and to a different kind of darkness when Nell witnesses the
inexorable decline of her aged parents.

Moral Disorder may traffic in sombre themes, but Atwood’s trademark
mordant wit rescues it from dirge territory. Nell’s attempts to
explain the nuances of Browning’s “The Last Duchess” to a
literal-mind classmate is one of the book’s comic highlights.
Atwood’s world view is bleak and uncompromising, but the way she
expresses it never fails to entertain.