Although Bodily Harm is a gripping and horrific narrative (complete with CIA and spy vs. spy reinforcement) it is not merely a suspense-filled adventure thriller set in the Caribbean for an added touch of exotic flair. It is the story of Rennie Wilson, an "options open" drifter who takes a seemingly harmless vacation in St. Antoine to escape the pressures and perversions of her life….
My first impulse was to dismiss the ineffectual and introspective hold that Rennie has on her life, but nothing is that simple, a fact that becomes all too clear as Rennie attempts to escape from an essentially middle-class environment. The novel possesses the unrelenting sub-surface terror of Under the Volcano, the irony and condemnation of innocence and laissez-faire that can be found in The Quiet American, and Atwood's own unflinching belief in her characters' ability to bring the story home, in all its violence and nightmare reality. The book is also concerned with that same violence, magnified several times, that major political forces effect in their race for oil, for power, for control. St. Antoine is a devastating example of what that cold and brutal mentality can do both against a country and its citizens.
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