The Year of the Flood

Plot

The Year of the Flood details the events of Oryx and Crake from the perspective of the lower classes in the pleeblands, specifically the God's Gardeners. God's Gardeners are a religious sect that combines some Biblical practices and beliefs with some scientific practices and beliefs. They are vegetarians devoted to honoring and preserving all plant and animal life, and they predict a human species-ending disaster, which they call "The Waterless Flood". This prediction becomes true in a sense, as Crake's viral pandemic destroys human civilization.

The plot follows two characters, Toby and Ren, whose stories intertwine with each other and, at points, with major characters from Oryx and Crake. Much of the story is told through flashbacks with the two main characters separately surviving the apocalypse described in the previous novel, each reminiscing about their time in the God's Gardeners religious movement and the events that led to their current situations.

Toby is a young woman who loses her parents under tragic circumstances that may or may not be due to the corporations, and is forced to live off of the grid in a shady meat burger joint. She soon encounters the unwelcome attentions of Blanco – the psychopathic manager of the chain who sexually assaults women in his employ and has a reputation of killing women. The leader of God's Gardeners, Adam One, is looked up to as a charismatic holy man but perceived by outsiders as a cult leader. He saves Toby from Blanco and takes her to the sanctuary of his rooftop garden. Toby becomes an influential member of the gardeners and encounters Ren, a child member of the gardeners.

Ren eventually grows up to become a prostitute and trapeze dancer in the sex-club Scales and Tails, and happens to be locked in a bio-containment unit in the club when the pandemic occurs. Similarly, Toby is barricaded within a luxury spa where she has begun to work following a raid on the gardeners by Blanco and his brutish pals.

Main characters

Oryx, Crake (aka Glenn) and Jimmy appear in cameo roles over the course of the book with the protagonists Ren and Toby unaware that these characters are responsible for the pandemic. While the first book in the series, Oryx and Crake, is told from the perspective of Jimmy/Snowman, The Year of the Flood is told from the point of view of two women, Ren and Toby.

God's Gardeners

Locations

Organizations

Glossary

Events

Promotion

Atwood's tour to promote the book included choral performances of 14 religious hymns that appear in the book.

Naming rights

For both Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, Atwood donated naming rights to characters in the novel to charity auctions. One of the winning bidders was journalist Rebecca Eckler, who paid $7,000 at a benefit for the magazine The Walrus.

Critical reception

The novel was generally well-received; reviewers noted that while the plot was sometimes chaotic, the novel's imperfections meshed well with the flawed reality the book was trying to reflect. The Daily Telegraph commented that "Margaret Atwood is genuinely inventive, rather than merely clever".

In 2010, the novel was longlisted as a candidate for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for the 2010 Trillium Book Award.

The novel was selected for inclusion in the 2014 edition of CBC Radio's Canada Reads, where it was defended by Stephen Lewis.