Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity. <i>By Lorraine York.</i>

In her earlier book on Canadian literary celebrity, Literary Celebrity in Canada, Lorraine York (2007) heads her chapter on Margaret Atwood with a comment Atwood made in 1973: "I've been described as the Barbra Streisand of Can Lit … But I think of myself more as the Mary Pickford, spreading joy" (99).As York mentions, Atwood's observation is both wry and self-aware.Mary Pickford, a Canadian actress who eventually became a Hollywood starlet during the silent era, made the transition from the margins of her profession, far from the engines of international celebrity, to a central role as a prominent film producer, public benefactress, and founder of the United Artists film studio.Near the beginning of her own illustrious career, when she herself was becoming a celebrity author, Atwood's pithy comment provides ample evidence of her awareness that her own career trajectory had much in common with Pickford's.In Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity, Lorraine York examines Atwood's acute awareness of the potential and the dangers of celebrity-and the rewards of managing it wisely.In this lively and provocative book, York focuses on Atwood's celebrity as the product of Atwood's early decision to approach the work of writing and publishing as a cultural industry.Work began in the 1960s, when Atwood took the advice of her friend and mentor Jane Rule to get an agent.In 1976, Atwood professionalized her work and image further when she became the first Canadian author to incorporate herself as O.W. Toad, an anagram of her own name (p. 7).From her careful reading of the correspondence archived by Atwood and O.W. Toad, York shows that Atwood is neither helpless in the face of unmanageable fame, nor an empty sign managed by others.Rather, Atwood is a canny author and self-aware cultural worker who treats the craft of writing as an art, and treats the management of her career and image as serious business."Margaret Atwood" as a brand is the result of decades of collaboration between Atwood; the office of O.W. Toad and its assistant-who manages her correspondence and her public appearances to promote new books and projects; her longtime agent, Phoebe Larmore; and a group of editors who work with the content and presentation of Atwood's writing at every step in the production process.Atwood has created a network of business associates who help her make decisions and manage the business of what Graham Huggan (2001) has called "Atwood Inc.," while she remains at the centre of the production of both her image and the cultural products that bear her name.At the same time she is often ironic, even caustic, about her own fame and about the idea of writing as a business.York reserves her judgement about Atwood's stance about celebrity, calling it "complicated" (p.132).She does say at many points that

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