Margaret Atwood, Interviewed

The novelist talks to the Guardian about zombies, bees – and why she had to finish her latest novel, MaddAddam, on a train.

From the piece...

Thus every story begins, unfolding on the understanding that all accounts are partial, all impressions subject to change. As a child, for example, Atwood and her family would spend their summers out in the wilds and their winters in the city, so that "my idea of a city was that it was always cold and covered with snow, because that was the only time that we went." Her father, Carl Atwood, was a zoologist conducting entomological research (she used the details in her novel Cat's Eye). Her mother was a nutritionist. Atwood's interest in science isn't coincidental and she didn't need consultants for the novel. "I grew up with the biologists. I know how they think."

The biologists, in turn, are rather grateful for her interest. "They're my readers. I have a big following among the biogeeks of this world. Nobody ever puts them in books. 'Finally! Someone understands us!'"