THE TESTAMENTS

Margaret Atwood’s long-awaited Gilead sequel ‘picks up 15 or 16 years after Offred disappears to an unknown fate at the end of The

Handmaid’s Tale’, explained Anne Enright in the Guardian. ‘There are three narrators, two young and idealistic, one old and endlessly cunning. The most compelling portrait is that of wickedness... the story is driven by the infamous Aunt Lydia.

‘The younger women, Agnes [in Gilead] and Daisy [in Canada] do not remember the old days... Daisy is as bolshy and idealistic as any other teenager, Agnes is loyal and ready to love.’ Allison Pearson in the Daily

Telegraph said: ‘It races along like a spy thriller written by Charles Dickens... The first surprise is that Offred is nowhere to be seen. Instead, the story is told alternately by Agnes and Daisy (Offred’s daughters, who have never met), and, retrospectively, through written testaments by Aunt Lydia.’

Enright felt: ‘This open, plotdriven novel brings [Agnes and Daisy] together in a way that owes [much] to a Shakespearean comedy of children lost and found.’

Peter Kemp in the Sunday Times agreed: ‘Rather unexpectedly, comedy is the keynote of The Testaments. Instead of weakening

The Handmaid’s Tale’s assured status as a horror-paradigm of ideological tyranny by stretching out its fearfulness, Atwood has complemented [it] with a mordantly entertaining look at the monstrosities of Gilead on the brink of its disintegration.’