SOURCE: "Mirror, Mirror, Who's the Evilest?" in Newsweek, Vol. CXXII, No. 19, November 8, 1993, p. 81.

In the following review, Shapiro praises Atwood's novel The Robber Bride.

Nobody maps female psychic territory the way Margaret Atwood does, sure-footed even in the wilds. Her latest novel, The Robber Bride takes its title from the Grimm fairy tale about the robber bridegroom who kidnaps maidens and carries them off to his house to be cut up and eaten. Here the malevolent suitor is a woman named Zenia, mysterious and alluring, who insinuates herself into other women's lives and carries off their husbands and boyfriends. If they're lucky, they escape.

At the center of the book are three women, longtime friends who became so after Zenia slashed and burned her way through each of their lives. Zenia herself lurks just out of sight until close to the end, when each of the women confronts...