Atwood has an almost prescient attunement to the issues most affecting the Western World. Her 1986 novel The Handmaid's Tale (which is a feminist masterpiece, in the best sense of the word) outlined a dystopian world where religious fanaticism and theocracy were starting to be really scary to many in America. Her second dystopian novel, the 2004 Oryx and Crake , showed a world where technology outstripped common sense just at a time when debate was heating up about stem cell research and other bio-engineering issues.

While this book falls firmly into the realm of non-fiction, it gives a peak into Atwood's considerable mind's inner workings. To put some numbers on it: As of 2004, U.S. citizens were carrying, on average, 14 percent more debt than income; as of last month, the U.S. government owed China something like $1.3 trillion; as of, well, now, the total amount of our national debt is more than $10 trillion. Perhaps it is time, as Atwood suggests, to examine "debt as a human construct ... that peculiar nexus where money, narrative or story, and religious belief intersect, often with explosive force."

Early reviews suggest that while the book raises some interesting and important questions about debt and human being's relationship to it (eg: the first thing societies have to pay a debt is another person, the devil as the world's oldest and busiest creditor, etc....), it is not entirely successful in making a cogent argument about our current debt-laden situation. 

Anyone an Atwood fan or planning to check out this new book? I am interested to hear your thoughts...

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