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Moral Disorder, by Margaret Atwood. Doubleday

Geoffrey Bateman, Special to the News

Published September 21, 2006 at midnight

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• Fiction. By Margaret Atwood. Doubleday, $24.95.Grade: A

Plot in a nutshell: Author of more than 25 volumes of fiction, poetry and nonfiction, Atwood is perhaps best known for her speculative fiction (The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake). But this superb collection of intimately linked short stories more closely approximates the familial preoccupations of her Booker Award-winning The Blind Assassin, tracing one woman's life over the course of many decades and exploring the web of relationships that shape her.

The stories open near the end of Nell and Tig's long life together. In Bad News, they confront the dismal state of world politics through their carefully scripted domestic routines. Despite the frictions of their life together, Nell realizes that life without Tig would be nearly impossible, for, as she admits, "I'd have no one left whose mind I can read."

Atwood then returns to Nell's childhood, with brief impressions of Nell's early years. In The Art of Cooking and Serving, Nell prepares for the birth of her baby sister. In My Last Duchess, she pays homage to an exacting and inspiring English teacher, Miss Bessie.

The remaining stories explore Nell's adulthood, focusing primarily on her developing relationship with Tig, a married man with two sons, and later her aging parents.

Sample of prose: In The Headless Horseman, Atwood transforms Nell's last Halloween as an awkward adolescent into a nuanced meditation on creativity, family and identity. Says Nell, "I loved the sensation of prowling abroad in the darkness - of being unseen, unknown, potentially terrifying, though all the time retaining, underneath, my own harmless, mundane, and dutiful self."

Pros: In these clever, tightly conceived stories, Atwood never fails to dazzle with a keen appreciation for the poetic possibilities of language and its ability to convey our most secretive selves.

Cons: The stories are so compelling that they leave us wishing for a fuller, more novelistic treatment.

Final word: Atwood masterfully captures the moments in one woman's life, reminding us of the anchoring power of storytelling. As Nell wonders, "Where are we without our plots?"