Since 1961, Margaret Atwood has published 18 novels, 18 poetry books, and 9 collections of her short fiction, as well as many other works. In 2000, Atwood won the Booker Prize for her tenth novel, The Blind Assassin, and followed this up with Oryx and Crake. Although the book, the first in a trilogy, was considered to be science fiction, Atwood herself thought it to be speculative fiction because she believed it was more a springboard for discussion about the future and the direction in which the world was going rather than a glimpse at a futuristic world. Currently, Atwood remains most famous for her dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, which was adapted for a television drama series.
In 1983, Atwood published a collection of short stories called Murder in the Dark. One of the more popular stories within the anthology was "Happy Endings," which itself consists of six smaller stories, identified by the letters A through F, each giving a brief account of the characters' lives. The central two characters in each story are John and Mary, two people whose identities morph and shift depending on which version of their "story" the reader encounters. The story's structure plays with and alters readers' expectations throughout, ultimately serving as commentary on the nature of storytelling and fiction writing in general.
As in most of Atwood's work, the story also includes themes like society's interpretation of domesticity and men's abuse of power.
After the success of The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood's earlier work experienced a resurgence, and "Happy Endings" was appreciated anew, winning a nomination for the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize in 2018.
