The first story was the one she told out loud, to the children of Crake it had a happy outcome, or as happy as she could manage. A pair of accounts, really: “About the events of that evening – the events that set human malice loose in the world again – Toby later made two stories. We begin MaddAddam where the first two books ended, or at least with an account of that fateful day. Atwood, in fact, provides short introductory pieces at the beginning of the novel recounting the two previous stories. Sorry to recap at such length, but while the third book in the trilogy, the just-published MaddAddam (McClelland & Stewart), can be read on its own, it does help to know what came before. As well, in the quarantine room of the Scales and Tails strip club, we see former dancer Ren, who has locked the plague out, and herself in, and is waiting to be rescued by her friend Amanda. This second volume follows the stories of a group known as God’s Gardeners – pacifists, environmentalists and vegans who practice a strange hodgepodge of religious, historical and mythical beliefs, mind their rooftop gardens and try to stay out of trouble – mostly through the point of view of Adam One, the group’s founder, and Toby, one of the senior Gardeners. In a storytelling coup, The Year of the Flood, the second book in the trilogy, takes place over roughly the same period of time – some scenes overlap - and ends in the same spot at more or less the same moment, with a confrontation involving Snowman, the Crakers, several surviving humans and a pair of evil, violent Painballers. The Corporate Security Corps, or CorpSeCorps, was the all-purpose police force, army and intelligence service. He also recounts the events leading up to the pandemic, when the world was ruled by corporations and the population was divided into the privileged elite, corporate employees (and managers and scientists) who lived in strong-walled Compounds, and everyone else, the inhabitants of the pleeblands, the slums and suburbs outside the Compounds. He interacts with the Children of Crake, bio-engineered, peaceable humanoids who lead simplified lives, don’t eat meat and have never felt greed (or clothing).
Snowman, who in the pre-Flood days was named Jimmy, tells the stories of Oryx, his great love, and Crake, his best friend.
You may remember that Oryx and Crake, the first novel in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian MaddAddam trilogy, is narrated by Snowman, a survivor – he thinks he may be the only human survivor – of the gruesome plague that has recently swept the Earth, leaving it deserted and ruined, inhabited by giant pigoons and wolvogs.
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