"If you do bad things for reasons you've been told are good, does it make you a bad person?"
Truth is I don't always get along with Margaret Atwood's brand of 'speculative' fiction, see my review of Maddaddam to see why. That said, The Heart Goes Last with its premise of a loving couple escaping the economically ravaged North East of America by way of an experimental model community is different from the off.
In short this is Atwood at her most zany, expect sexual fantasies, organ harvesting, sex-bots and Elvis impersonators all convincingly served up with a domestic tale of a couple just trying to get on in life.
Consilience is a 1950s inspired model town that Stan and Charmaine apply to enter to escape a life of subsistence survival. Consilience promises white picket fences, Doris Day on the wireless and fresh laundered sheets but, of course, there is a catch. The couple only live in the house on alternate months and spend the rest of their time in the Positron Prison. Their lives are essentially shared with another couple, their alternates, whom they shouldn't in theory meet.
This set up is convincingly delivered by Atwood who captures the Truman Show style vibe perfectly but its when the sinister activity beneath the surface starts to bubble up that the novel really switches up a gear. As tensions build questions are asked and the couple need to ask themselves how much they are prepared to pay for the contentment and amenity of home life.
Consilience/Positron is a believable near future community; heavy surveillance, monitoring and a price to pay for all life's comforts. Equally, Stan and Charmaine are an assuredly contemporary couple aware of their flaws but in love nonetheless. This may be Atwood-light but its a great read.
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