Impersistence of vision has often been an underlying motif in Margaret Atwood's oblique, artful stories, but her latest novel, which just won the Booker Prize, turns that theme into an obsession. The Blind Assassin is constructed like an onion: Peeling away the obscuring levels of narrative takes patience and no small amount of endurance, but each layer is sharper and smoother than the last, making the outer layers seem rough and disposable once the polished core comes into view. At the outset, the book concerns socialite Iris Griffen, whose sister Laura has just died in an apparent suicide. But the focus quickly shifts to a posthumous novel, The Blind Assassin, which makes Laura the subject of scandal (in 1947, when it's first published) and of cultish worship (in later years, when its themes of romantic alienation make it popular among scholars and histrionic young women). That novel, presented in slices throughout Atwood's book, follows a society woman carrying on a tormented affair with a lower-class man whose insecurities constantly come between them. The two have little in common except momentary ardor and the intimacy of a fable he composes for her about two lovers living on the planet Zycron, in a fantastical city populated by masked aristocrats, sacrificial maidens, and blind assassins. His story forms a third layer of Atwood's novel, Iris' modern-day life as a cantankerous widow a fourth, and the tale she begins about her childhood with Laura a fifth that ultimately circles around to encompass all the others. Atwood flutters among these levels throughout her book, swerving backwards and forwards in time to show how one (presumably) true history became a series of false histories in the memories of outsiders, whether involved with Laura or not. In the process, she gradually exposes a fascinating, generation-spanning story of disappointment and betrayal. Ironically, Atwood's tropes don't quite withstand the scrutiny her storyline demands: Somewhere beneath Assassin's high-flying metaphorical language and impressive artifice lies a sordid and stereotypical romance novel about a passionless forced marriage, a runaway teenager, and a doomed, theatrical, society-defying affair. But it might be best to avoid probing that deeply. If accepted on the poetic level at which it's presented, Atwood's puzzlebox of a book reads as a sometimes opaque but ultimately thoughtful and rewarding exploration into the nature of history, identity, and sexuality.