70 pages 2 hours read

Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000

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Book 8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 8 Summary

The couple in The Blind Assassin continue their affair, but more sporadically. When the man asks his lover where she's been, she admits that sheand her family are leaving for a cruise. She insists she doesn't want to go, but the man is bitter. During this meeting, the couple also argues over the ending to the story of the blind assassin and the girl. The woman thinks that the assassin should tell the People of Joy the secret to entering Sakiel-Norn in exchange for safe passage to the mountains, which are not actually inhabited by dead women after all. The man scoffs at this and reveals his own ending: the People of Joy do in fact sack Sakiel-Norn, but when the assassin and the girl reach the mountains, they realize that they have "got hold of the wrong rumour. The dead women really are dead. Not only that, the wolves really are wolves, and the dead women can whistle them up at will" (344).

While on the cruise, the woman recalls a story her lover told her months earlier. Two men fighting in a war against "Xenorian Lizard Man" crash land on an unknown planet (350).