Old Babes in the Wood: Stories

Margaret Atwood returns to short fiction with fifteen stories that map the terrain of human connection across time. The collection moves between realism and the quietly uncanny, tracing long marriages, fractured mother-daughter bonds, and the strange weight of grief. Recurring characters anchor the book's emotional core: a couple whose decades together unspool in seven linked stories, rendered in moments both mundane and luminous. Elsewhere, folklore gets reimagined, aging sisters confront memory, and a mother who may or may not be a witch looms over her daughter's life with unsettling persistence.

The audio production matches the collection's range by deploying eight distinct narrators, including Atwood herself, whose dry cadence lends her own words an unmistakable authority. Dan Stevens and Bahni Turpin bring contrasting textures to their respective stories, while Linda Lavin and Rebecca Lowman handle the quieter domestic pieces with genuine restraint. The format suits the material well: short fiction rewards the intimacy of a single voice, and the rotating cast keeps the listener oriented across tonal shifts from wry comedy to subdued devastation.