From the New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale—now an Emmy Award–winning Hulu original series—and Alias Grace, now a Netflix original series—comes a darkly comic novel about a bored wife, secret novelist, and overnight literary sensation who must fake her own death to escape her tangled web of identities.

Joan Foster is a bored wife confused by her life of multiple identities. She becomes a literary sensation overnight as Canada’s newest superpoet, while also secretly authoring lurid gothic romances on the sly. When a blackmailing reporter threatens to unravel her carefully divided lives, Joan tumbles through menacing schemes, perilous traps, and passionate affairs before fleeing to Terremoto, Italy—but first, she must plan her own death.

Darkly comic, poetic, and enchanting, this unforgettable novel showcases Margaret Atwood at her most imaginative and incisive.