book / 2000
The Blind Assassin
Iris Chase looks back through family scandal, a dead sister, and a nested story that hides the real confession.
Verified facts
- Author
- Margaret Atwood
- Published
- 2000
- Language
- English
PlotGeeks explainer signals
Why read this explainer
Memoir, public records, and nested fiction give competing access to Iris and Laura's history. Notice which account has authority at each point.
PlotGeeks note
Iris's surviving record can challenge respectability maintained through family silence. Authorship becomes part of whose private life can be recognized.
Connected knowledge
Connected in PlotGeeks
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Remembering and forgetting affect what characters accept as evidence, how they experience loss, and the versions of the past they can live with.
Timeline
Major events
- Laura's death enters the public record
Reports of the crash and a posthumous novel frame the family story Iris later questions.
- Iris marries Richard
Her father treats the marriage as a way to save the business and secure Laura's future.
- Laura's history becomes clear
Iris discovers Richard's abuse after misreading Laura's attachment to Alex.
- Iris writes for Sabrina
The memoir reveals the novel's authorship and the parentage concealed within the family history.
Story in 60 Seconds
The short version
In old age, Iris Chase Griffen writes a record of her wealthy Canadian family for her estranged granddaughter Sabrina. Her account alternates with newspaper reports and a novel published under her dead sister Laura's name. Within that novel, secret lovers share an invented science-fiction story. Iris remembers marrying Richard Griffen in an arrangement intended to protect the failing family business. She and Laura also sheltered the fugitive Alex Thomas. As Iris describes the marriage and Laura's death, the public accounts of romance, respectability, and authorship become increasingly doubtful.
Spoiler sectionEnding ExplainedShow ending detailsHide ending details
Iris reveals that she wrote the novel attributed to Laura, using her own affair with Alex Thomas. Alex also fathered her daughter Aimee, making Sabrina his descendant. Her memoir explains Richard's sexual coercion of Laura and Iris's failures to understand it. She leaves the manuscript for Sabrina, hoping that knowledge of this history will free her granddaughter from the Griffens' account.
Original context
Why it matters
Public authorship conceals private experience
The novel's attribution to Laura encourages a mistaken reading of its lovers. Iris's later admission makes her own concealed affair part of the evidence.
Key turning points
Laura's account is misread
Iris assumes Alex fathered Laura's pregnancy and responds with jealousy. Discovering Richard's coercion afterward exposes the damage done by that mistaken judgment.
Character links
Who connects to whom
Character motivations
A record for an estranged granddaughter
Iris cannot recover the relationships lost through abuse and secrecy. Writing for Sabrina allows her to disclose parentage and decisions the family's public story excluded.
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