[Life Before Man] has a subtly documentary air, like the best kind of women's journalism or the most sympathetic case notes. Events are precisely dated. Canadian social structure, domestic interiors, street habits are inconspicuously documented…. Yet the writing is not pedestrian. The novelist is also a poet; one is reminded of this not by her lyricism but by her precision, as when Nate at a party stares down the meaningless cleavage of a meaningless girl: "He watches this pinched landscape idly."

Life Before Man is a very skillful work, linguistically sensitive, not at all boring, utterly realized, disciplined, perceptive. It provokes a slight unease. Margaret Atwood is one of a number of contemporary women novelists adding to a body of fiction that in terms of technique, thoughtfulness, honesty and sheer intelligence has probably never been equaled. That sounds like a school-report; and there lies the unease.

Life Before...