The Heart Goes Last

Margaret Atwood is one of my favourite authors, so when she released a new novel 18 months ago I was pretty excited to read it. I bought a copy but somehow it got lost in my to-read pile and she’s since released another book. Finally it made it to the front of the rotation, and I was eager to see if I’d like it as much as I liked books like “The Blind Assassin” or “Cat’s Eye”.

“The Heart Goes Last” by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian science fiction novel set in a not-too distant future. Married couple Charmaine and Stan are living in their car after losing their home in a financial crash. Unable to get a job where his tech skills apply, Stan’s self esteem is ebbing while Charmaine works for peanuts at a bar to support them. When Charmaine sees an advertisement for a social experiment that claims to eradicate poverty, Charmaine convinces a reluctant Stan that this is the answer to their problems. Despite his reservations, Stan agrees to sign his life away to a utopian promise where in exchange for one month of paradise, participants spend one month in prison.

I just didn’t feel this book. I wanted to like it, but I could not get myself immersed. Stan and Charmaine just feel like the archetypes of the middle-class, straight white heterosexual couple. They start out unremarkable and they stay unremarkable. The premise is interesting, but Consilience as a concept felt a bit unfinished and under-researched and as a consequence lacked credibility. Maybe this is because the setting is too close to now, and it’s easier to suspend disbelief when the society described is far from our own. The characters on the inside all have a bit of a cardboard cut out feel and as Stan embarks on his mission, it’s just scene after scene of characters that don’t appear to have any distinct personality from one another. I felt like the gender segregation part of the book was a missed opportunity, and way too much of the book was dominated by sex and fetishes that were largely disconnected from the main plot. In even the most highly emotional parts of the book, I didn’t feel moved. Even if this is meant to be satire and a critique of where our society is heading, the story just feels way too artificial and ultimately falls flat.

Although Margaret Atwood has succeeded in writing dystopian fiction in the past, I think this book misses the mark.