Book Three begins in the narrative present (1998), with Iris preparing to present the Laura Chase Memorial Prize. Irisis crotchety and cynical, frequently lamenting her old age and bristling at the help provided by Myra (Reenie's daughter) and her boyfriend Walter: "I found my comb, made a perfunctory stab at the top of my head. Myra keeps threatening to take me to ‘her girl,' at what she still refers to as the Beauty Parlor" (37). As the ceremony proceeds, Iris reflects on both her sister and The Blind Assassin, which caused a "furor" at the time of its publication both for its frank references to sex and its apparent depiction of a real-life love affair (39). 

Iris has been experiencing dizziness, which her doctor recently confirmed is the result of a heart condition. Faced with the prospect of death, Iris decides to write an account of her life, though she isn't sure why: "Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for, when they scrawl their names in the snow" (43). On her doctor's advice, she also takes regular walks, often to places that remind her of her past. Visitingan abandoned factory that once belonged to the Chasesserves as a segue into her memoir: Benjamin Chase, Iris's grandfather, made a fortune by turning a family mill into a button factory.