The Heart Goes Last: A Novel

Margaret Atwood

Sep 2015 · Sold by Anchor

About this ebook

From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments—in the gated community of Consilience, residents who sign a contract will get a job and a lovely house for six months of the year...if they serve as inmates in the Positron prison system for the alternate months.

“Captivating...thrilling.” —The New York Times Book Review

Stan and Charmaine, a young urban couple, have been hit by job loss and bankruptcy in the midst of nationwide economic collapse. Forced to live in their third-hand Honda, where they are vulnerable to roving gangs, they think the gated community of Consilience may be the answer to their prayers. At first, this seems worth it: they will have a roof over their heads and food on the table. But when a series of troubling events unfolds, Positron begins to look less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled. 

The Heart Goes Last is a vivid, urgent vision of development and decay, freedom and surveillance, struggle and hope—and the timeless workings of the human heart.

Ratings and reviews

First, when I read the description I wasn't aware this was the 4th book. I'm sad to say I didn't really enjoy any aspect of this novel. Perhaps because I missed the first three books. Overall I'm glad I finished it and can forget it and move on.

Atwood has long been my favorite author, but this book is not up to her usual quality of writing. It's tremendously repetitive and unusually graphic.

Frighteningly hints at a total breakdown of society at every level.Is Positron Project too good to be true? Of course ....but what is in store for protagonists Charmaine and Stan?

About the author

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade.
 
Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.