Atwood feels that all writers have two selves: their “daily” self and their writer self. While writing her books, she did not feel that any of them were autobiographical, but she now acknowledges that her real life has affected her work. She argues that all written work is affected by the time and place the author lives in, no matter its setting.

At first, she dismissed the idea of writing a memoir; she felt it would be tedious to describe herself working on her books. However, in reflecting on it, she found the idea interesting since it could give her an opportunity to address the myriad perceptions and criticisms of her and her work. She notes that she has been both celebrated and villainized by the press and politicians, and some of the criticism directed at her has been tainted by sexist bias. She muses on the contradicting and ever-shifting identities attributed to her, which she compares to “funhouse mirrors,” and suggests they are made more interesting by her “Jekyll and Hyde” personas—the daily self and writer self that all writers have.

Atwood believes that writers draw on different parts of themselves as they write. She uses the Greek gods