Death by Landscape Margaret Atwood

Title: Death by Landscape

Author: Margaret Atwood

Setting: Canada — mainly at a summer girls’ camp in Northern Ontario and later in Lois’s apartment in Toronto

Summary:

The story follows Lois, an elderly woman who lives alone in her apartment filled with landscape paintings. Each painting shows wild Canadian scenery — forests, lakes, cliffs — but Lois finds them unsettling rather than peaceful. They remind her of a mysterious and tragic event from her youth.

As a teenager, Lois attended Camp Manitou, a summer camp for girls in the Canadian wilderness. There, she became close friends with Lucy, a lively, confident girl from a wealthy American family. The two girls shared everything and often went canoeing and hiking together.

One day, during a camping trip on a cliff overlooking a lake, Lucy disappears. The girls had climbed to the top of a steep hill, and Lois heard Lucy go behind some trees — then suddenly, she was gone. Despite hours of searching, no one ever found Lucy’s body. There was no scream, no fall, no trace — she simply vanished into the landscape.

The disappearance traumatizes Lois. Over the years, she feels haunted by guilt — wondering if she could have done something, or if Lucy somehow chose to disappear. The event shapes Lois’s entire life. She never fully connects with others, marries and has children but remains emotionally distant, as if part of her life is missing.

Now, as an older woman, Lois fills her apartment with landscape paintings — not because she loves nature, but because she feels that Lucy is still there, hidden somewhere within those wild scenes. For Lois, the paintings are both a comfort and a reminder: Lucy has become part of the land itself.