Back in Cambridge, Atwood protested American involvement in the Vietnam War and found another cheap room to rent. She loathed her rude landlady but tolerated the other strange characters in the house, allowing them to seep into her poetry. She completed The Edible Woman and received a letter from Canadian publisher McClelland and Stewart, the only publishing house she sent it to, saying that the company would publish it.

She continued working on her coursework—and fulfilling the expectation that female graduate students would serve cookies and tea to everyone during lessons. In her courses, she puzzled over the differences between Canadian and American literature and culture and thought about how art informs national identity. She relished her time at the Houghton Library, where she appreciated studying rare manuscripts and books.

Atwood became interested in Susanna Moodie’s journals about life as a Victorian lady in rural Canada. Writing poetry from Moodie’s perspective helped Atwood “break open” the topic, which soon became fodder for her novel Alias Grace. Atwood also went through creative frustrations. She decided to develop her experiences as a camp nature teacher into a novel, carefully brainstorming, developing characters, and organizing the rigid structure the story would follow. However, after 200 pages of little plot development, she gave it up, realizing that her creative process was spontaneous and unstructured.

Atwood moved yet again to try to save money on rent. Now finished with her coursework, she tried to apply herself to writing once again, but living under financial pressure was a distraction. She had to finish her doctorate to find a good teaching job, but she only wanted to teach so that she would have the time and money to write. Her roommates, Susan and Karen, later remembered her as an optimistic and headstrong person with an interest in topics related to gender.

Meanwhile, The Circle Game was published in Canada, an accomplishment that pleased Atwood but also filled her with dread that the book would fail. Instead, the book won the Governor General’s Award in 1966 and attracted the attention of an Oxford University Press editor. Soon after, Atwood’s second book of poems, The Animals in That Country, was published by Oxford University Press.

Atwood traveled to Ottawa to receive the award and its $1,000 prize. There she met Canadian author Margaret Laurence, striking up a friendship with her that would later sour. Atwood muses on how receiving such an award made her well-known in literary circles but also stirred up “jealousy and malice” from other poets (240). Atwood then visited Toronto, where old friends from university told her they were starting their own publishing company and wanted to re-print The Circle Game; they would give her a “share” in the company and release 3,000 more copies of her poetry book. Atwood agreed. She attracted attention from publisher McLelland and Stewart, which had been instrumental in publishing Canadian authors in the postwar years. Without even reading the work, Jack McClelland, a renowned risk-taker and excellent salesman, agreed to publish Atwood’s book The Edible Woman, which became her first published novel.

Back in Boston, Atwood and Jim Polk decided to marry. She wanted to return to Canada, and Jim could not join her unless they were married; as an American moving to Canada, he would be suspected of being a draft dodger. The two had a simple ceremony in a justice of the peace’s living room with a few family members and friends.

Atwood details her second husband’s life, from his family’s origins in Scotland to his upbringing as the son of a Canadian World War II soldier. While his father fought in Italy and the Netherlands, Graeme lived with his mother and sister on Bloor Street in Toronto.

Graeme was notorious for his headstrong and stubborn disposition. He attended 17 different schools as a young child and showed no interest in any of them. He was, however, very intelligent, and while on a trip to Australia eventually completed some curriculum with a tutor, taking just a month to finish a year’s work. In high school, Graeme was falsely accused of misbehaving by a principal and was expelled when he complained. He got his revenge by chasing a skunk into the principal’s car. He continued moving frequently, as his father was still in the military, and getting into benign mischief wherever he went. After failing his grade 13 exams, Graeme attended Royal Military College, where he had previously spent summers as an officer in training. However, he disliked army life and dropped out to attend college in Ontario and Edinburgh instead. Over the years, Graeme grew closer to completing his master’s degree but in the end spurned academia and its teaching possibilities to embrace a more bohemian life as a writer.

Now 27 years old, Atwood moved to Montreal, Quebec, with Jim. There, Atwood taught at Sir George Williams University. It was now 1967, and the Expo ‘67 in Montreal had buoyed the nation, though Quebecois separatism was also intensifying at the time. At the university, Atwood connected with other professors who were also writers. The profession was not respected at the time; Atwood recalls how people who eschewed good jobs to pursue writing were considered strange. The stress of her life as a professor and writer made Atwood lose weight, but she hardly noticed because she was so busy with her writing. At a party, she met Gwendoline MacEwan, who read Atwood and Jim’s tarot cards and announced that Atwood would overcome obstacles but Jim would face catastrophe.

Jim finally graduated from Harvard with a doctorate and went to Alberta to begin a teaching position there. Meanwhile, Atwood stayed with her teenage sister while her parents went to Europe. Overwhelmed with her sister’s adolescent angst, Atwood found herself acting like a teen herself again. Her sister-sitting over, she moved to Edmonton, where she found Jim suffering culture shock and dealing with the city’s anti-American attitude. The two endured the city’s incredibly cold winter, which was shocking even for Torontonians. Now living in Edmonton with no job, Atwood turned her attention to finishing her doctoral thesis. While the women’s liberation movement was slowly simmering, it did not really influence Atwood’s choice of thesis topic; she had always been interested in Victorian imagery and gender. However, soon the women’s movement would indeed gain Atwood’s attention.

While in Edmonton, Atwood learned that her childhood cabin had burned down and wrote a somber poem about it. Working on her thesis and trying to make progress on her next novel, Surfacing, made Atwood ill, and she began having painful episodes. The doctor recommended a reduction in stress and eliminating coffee, which disheartened her. That summer, Atwood and Jim drove to the west coast, where they connected with author Alice Munro, already celebrated at the time. While at the beach, Jim lost his wedding ring, which Atwood in hindsight feels was a bad omen for their short-lived marriage.

The Edible Woman was released, with female reviewers being generally supportive while many male reviewers were actively hostile to Atwood. She did some media interviews for the book launch while in Edmonton, where interviewers were often dismissive of her work. Her reputation for being “eviscerating” with interviewers started then, but she says that she is only ever rude to people who are rude to her first. The novel attracted the attention of British filmmakers, who hired Atwood to write the film’s script. She was amazed that they would want to adapt the novel and agreed.

While out east Atwood cheated on her husband, as she felt he was uninterested in their marriage. Returning to Edmonton, tensions between them ran high, and they lost a close friend to brain cancer. Before his death, he warned them that they should leave Edmonton for their quality of life, and they took his advice, fleeing the city with plans to go to England.

Atwood picks up the life story of her second husband, Graeme Gibson. Now 24, Graeme moved to England in 1959 with the plan to write a novel. He had recently had a child with an actress named Shirley, and he needed a good job to support her and the baby, Matthew. He found work as a supply teacher and housing in a dingy apartment. The couple had another child and returned to Canada, where Gibson found work as a professor. He continued working on his novel, which was a painstaking process. Eventually, Denis Lee of Anansi Press, the publishing house Atwood owned a “share” in, agreed to publish his novel Five Legs. At a party for a mutual friend, Atwood met Gibson and expressed her admiration for his novel, which she felt should have won a major prize. However, she thought nothing of their brief interaction.

Atwood and Jim moved to London, England, where she worked on the screenplay for the film The Edible Woman. She also took on the role of editing a poetry book for Anansi Press and then accepted a place on the company’s editorial board, not knowing that the company’s editors had been in constant conflict with each other. During her time in London, Atwood connected with numerous witty—and eccentric—figures in the London publishing world.

In 1970, The Edible Woman was released in the United States, and Atwood traveled to New York for press and readings. Here, she met Phoebe Larmore, who would go on to be her literary agent for over 40 years. With the women’s movement underway and her own former lover hassling her to return to him, Atwood was inspired to write a book of poetry called Power Politics that explored relationships, gender, and power dynamics.

The film production changed hands, and Atwood struggled with adapting the novel into a script. Nevertheless, eh enjoyed collaborating with the British creatives on board. She hoped that the film’s feminist message and characters would still resonate in the early 1970s. With changes in style and personal expression and the revolutionary introduction of the birth control pill, life for women had changed enormously in just a decade. At the suggestion of a friend, Atwood began to wear her hair down, introducing another iteration of herself to the world.

Atwood and Jim enjoyed a brief stay in Anticoli, Italy, where she loved observing Italian life and landscapes, some of which inspired her third novel, Lady Oracle. After completing her final script for The Edible Woman, Atwood returned home to Ontario, where she had agreed to work at York University for a year and assume her editor role at Anansi Press.

In the early 1970s, Graeme was a published novelist and freelance writer living in Toronto with his wife, Shirley, with whom he had an open relationship. Graeme, who was under stress due to his parents’ collapsing marriage, ill health, and writing deadlines, was very unhappy, though his marriage with Shirley appeared wonderful from the outside. Eventually, he and Shirley separated. She later accused Atwood of being a “homewrecker,” but Atwood maintains that their home was already “thoroughly wrecked.” Atwood feels that infidelity was more common in the 1960s but says that partners should own up to their mistakes in relationships.