Back in Toronto, Atwood learned that Graeme had moved to a rented farm after he and Shirley had permanently separated. Atwood continued living in her Toronto home and working at the University of Toronto as a writer-in-residence, but she commuted to the farm often to be with Graeme. During this time, Atwood felt like she was always changing, alternately adjusting to country and city life, as well as trying to navigate her new relationship with Graeme’s children. She eventually settled into a good dynamic with them, leaning on her experience as a camp counsellor.

At work, Atwood found that her Canadian identity hampered her publicity, as British and American publishers considered Canada a backwater. Meanwhile, within Canada, Atwood was stunned that Survival sold 100,000 copies. It did, however, attract negative reviews from those on the right, as well as from leftists who felt that working-class authors were underrepresented. Atwood feels that many academics were simply jealous of the book’s success.

She and Graeme received many author visitors to the farm, where she spent much of her time. Their budding relationship—and her decision to divorce Jim—caused tension in both their families. Atwood’s parents did not express their negativity, but they did not allow Graeme at their family cabin, a sign of their disapproval of the relationship. Shirley became jealous when Atwood began to be Graeme’s most significant partner. Atwood believes that Shirley wanted Atwood’s financial support, as she was the biggest earner among them, but did not want her to be happy. Curious to test the strength of their partnership, Atwood and Graeme went on an ambitious, multi-day canoe trip, which was a great success.

Atwood and Graeme looked for a more permanent home and bought a farmhouse in Alliston, Ontario. The home, which was over 100 years old, was full of character—and, Atwood claims, a ghost. She and Graeme learned to live with the resident ghost, as well as the farm cat. On the farm, Atwood established a garden and enjoyed canning, preserving, making beer, foraging, and baking.

Atwood hoped that the farm would give her the space and time to write more, but she soon learned that the country had distractions of its own. She and Graeme embraced farm life and were soon raising a great menagerie of farm animals and pets. Eventually, Atwood’s parents grew more accepting of the relationship, and she, Graeme, and the boys would visit the family cabin each summer.

To make ends meet, Atwood took whatever creative work she could, writing scripts for CBC, performing paid readings, and earning some small royalties from her novels. Graeme established the Writer’s Union of Canada to help writers negotiate better contracts; the organization still exists today as the Writer’s Trust. Atwood completed and published her third novel, Lady Oracle, which was strongly influenced by her own personal life.

Atwood liked living on the farm, though her life was not without stress. Graeme was responsible with other people’s money at work, but disorganized with his personal finances, requiring Atwood’s help. Meanwhile, Shirley had become increasingly bitter toward Atwood, spreading mean gossip about her in Toronto literary circles and demanding more childcare and money from her. Atwood struggled with Graeme’s complacency about Shirley’s behavior and wanted their divorce to be finalized so that she and Graeme could have a child. She ultimately decided to forge ahead with her own life and ignore Shirley’s negativity as best she could.

When Atwood became pregnant, she had a new stressor to deal with; her sister, Ruth, was living with her and experiencing severe depression. Ruth’s therapist advised her to take certain medications and claimed that she had schizophrenia; however, a visit to a new psychiatrist revealed this was not the case at all. After an attempt to die by suicide, Ruth had to stay in a psychiatric facility for several months. Atwood later learned that her sister’s incompetent therapist was also Shirley’s therapist and always wondered if they knew of the connection.

With a baby on the way, a new book being released, and a farm to run, Atwood hired a helper named Carlyn to babysit and manage the farm. Soon, Atwood gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Eleanor Jess Gibson. The couple dealt with inconveniences and accidents on the farm, and Atwood realized that she should learn how to drive. While her mother babysat, she took driving lessons and finally got her license and a second-hand BMW. With her writing career taking off, Atwood established a corporation to handle her copyrights and income. She entitled it O.W. Toad, an anagram of her last name—and a cheeky nod to the character Toad of Toad Hall, who was also a bad driver.

In the guise of her thirty-something self, Atwood writes a letter to her “Inner Advice Columnist,” lamenting the fact that Graeme, having finally divorced Shirley, does not want to marry again. She is saddened to have this possibility taken from her and confused to be lauded by some feminists for her bravery in having a child out of wedlock—a situation she never wanted. She feels repressed anger toward Graeme and knows that his recent proposal is due to her sulky behavior. She wonders if she should leave him or accept his proposal. Her inner “columnist” replies frankly, telling her that if she loves Graeme, she should accept the proposal and enjoy life with him.

Atwood and Graeme decided to travel the world together with their daughter, and Atwood made many work-related stops along the way. They traveled to India, Iran, Afghanistan, Singapore, and Australia, where they took in the culture and landscapes. Atwood found the blatant sexism in Iran and Afghanistan disheartening but did not feel personally endangered while visiting.

After spending some time at home, the family sailed to Britain on the QE2 and went to Scotland, where Graeme was participating in a Scottish-Canadian artistic exchange. Atwood took care of their daughter and began her novel Life Before Man, drawing on her childhood experiences at the Royal Ontario Museum as well as her adult relationships. Her work continued to gain attention, with Norwegian and German publishers beginning to publish translations of her novels.

Back at home in Canada, Atwood longed for another child, but Graeme refused, saying he did not have the energy for another. Saddened, Atwood tried to count her blessings. One day, when Atwood was out, Graeme collapsed. His ongoing ulcer had burst, and if the babysitter had not saved him, he would have died. Atwood wonders if their relationship stress caused his ulcer to burst.

Graeme survived his operations and slowly recovered. The couple realized that their life on the farm was no longer tenable; Graeme was not well enough to do farm work, and Jess wanted to start school. Graeme began working on his novel Perpetual Motion while Atwood scoured Toronto for real estate. Eventually, they moved into their new Toronto home. This fixer-upper needed a lot of work; they hadn’t wanted to sell the farm and so had little money to put toward a new home. Atwood tried to settle in while dealing with the rats and roaches that were already residents there. Atwood found the house too distracting for work and rented another place as her writing studio. Eventually, she purchased another house entirely for this purpose.

During these years, Atwood continued to have a busy personal life. She supported Amnesty International and participated in their conference called The Writer and Human Rights. Her awareness of dictatorships around the world at the time, from the USSR to Argentina, seeped into her work. She also helped to establish PEN Canada, an organization that promotes writing and defends writers from unfair treatment. Atwood remained an active voice against inequality; after gay men’s bathhouses were targeted in the early 1980s in Toronto, she attended a rally and spoke in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Both she and Graeme loved to travel and became particularly keen birders, visiting the Galapagos, Caribbean, and Britain on birding trips.

Now in her forties, Atwood began keeping a journal in which she detailed her writing progress as a motivational tool for herself. She began a manuscript but became immensely frustrated with it, feeling it was going nowhere. Leaving it behind, she picked up on an idea that she had previously dismissed as too farfetched: a US totalitarian theocracy. Feeling stuck, she conversed with Hermes about her ideas; this god of playful tricks and messages “is the one you invoke when you’ve slammed headfirst into a stone wall” (429). With Hermes’s encouragement, Atwood embraced her initial idea and continued to write. She originally called the manuscript Offred. She became more interested in the challenge of writing an original and believable dystopian novel. She drew on her knowledge of the US’s Puritan history to craft the oppressive Christian theocracy described in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Atwood and Graeme traveled to Berlin, where they felt the chilly legacy of the war and Atwood worked on The Handmaid’s Tale. West Berlin had many available apartments since people did not want to live too close to East Berlin. As Canadians, Atwood and Graeme could easily travel to East Berlin and witnessed repressed social behavior that Atwood attributes to the Soviet practice of encouraging neighbors to spy on neighbors. They also traveled to Prague, which was also under Soviet control. Their hotel room was bugged, and they learned about all the social and environmental problems caused by the Soviets.

After taking a break from her novel writing, Atwood resumed, renaming her manuscript The Handmaid’s Tale in a nod to Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. When she finished the book, she worried about its reception, thinking people would assume she was anti-Christian and an “evil feminist.” The book was released in the mid-1980s, with many reviewers commenting on the likelihood (or unlikelihood) of the US ever descending into such a dictatorship. Atwood’s life was busy and stressful. She and her husband had moved to a nicer house closer to the university, renovating it and renewing the garden, but she spent much of her time in New York, where she was teaching a course on Canadian literature. Atwood’s hard work paid off, as the novel became a runaway commercial and critical success, and she received multiple literary prizes for it.

The Handmaid’s Tale did not bring Atwood instant fame, but it increased her reputation in certain circles. Meanwhile, she and Graeme maintained their usual priorities: finding time to spend in nature and go birding. They bought a house at Point Pelee, a special birding place on Lake Erie. They fell in love with the place and became involved in the community there. Atwood found their Pelee home very helpful for her writing process, and she began working on her next novel, Cat’s Eye, about girl bullies. Her daughter was now the age she had been when she was bullied, and she was careful to ensure Eleanor did not have the same experience.

When Cat’s Eye was published, the literary scene was in a panic over the reaction to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, with one publisher being murdered and another attacked. Graeme was the only Canadian literary figure to speak out against violence and censorship, and he met with Islamic leaders in Canada who had threatened Rushdie. Atwood was touched by readers’ responses to Cat’s Eye, as it resonated deeply with women who had been bullied, or acted as bullies, when they were young.

Atwood continued her involvement in the non-profit PEN Canada. She edited The Canlit Foodbook, which was full of humorous recipes by Canadian writers. The book’s success helped to finance the organization, which had a growing membership.