The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out

Shannon Hengen is an associate professor of English at Laurentian
University and the author of Margaret Atwood’s Power: Mirrors,
Reflections and Images in Select Fiction and Poetry.

As the subtitle implies, this work traces the beginnings of Margaret
Atwood’s life and career, up to the mid 1970s. It does so judiciously.
Although more intimate than an intellectual biography, The Red Shoes
does not indulge in hearsay or idle speculation. Rather, the
author—who won the Governor General’s Award for her biography of
Gwendolyn MacEwen—matches the history of Atwood’s early published
work with her personal correspondence to suggest resonances.
Sullivan’s stated purpose is to demonstrate that Atwood’s
disciplined approach to work and strong sense of self gave her the power
to translate brilliance into success. Of course the road to that success
was made difficult by the sexist and colonial world in which Atwood
matured.

While Sullivan does not attempt to present a complete assessment of
Atwood’s private persona, she allows vivid images to surface through
anecdotes, correspondence, and conversations, as well as Atwood’s own
poetry, which is quoted at some length. There are also compelling views
of some of Atwood’s contemporaries, including Charles Pachter,
Gwendolyn MacEwen, Margaret Laurence, and Graeme Gibson.

What the book does not include is any sustained reference to Atwood’s
critical reception, other than summaries of initial, mostly positive,
reviews. Sullivan’s own poetic voice, which expresses itself best
through analogy, implication, and understatement, functions well in
conveying a sense of the early Atwood and the cultures, American and
Canadian, into which she would insert herself. We await volume two.