Atwood’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ sequel worth the wait
They say to be careful what you wish for – sage advice where most sequels are concerned. It has been 34 years since the publication of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a dystopian masterpiece that imagines a totalitarian patriarchy in what used to be the United States, where women have been reduced to little more than breeding vessels.
The intervening years have proven the book distressingly still relevant, with women protesting in red Handmaids’ garb at political rallies. Obviously, there’s loads more for an author as skilled as Margaret Atwood to say about women’s roles in society and the policing of their bodies in her sequel, “The Testaments,” out Sept. 10 (Nan A. Talese, 432 pp., ★★★g). But with the original book overshadowed by the massively popular Hulu series that has continued the story on its own (and has, by the account of many critics, gone a bit off the rails), it’s only natural to worry that Atwood, 79, would lose the thread after so long.
Feel free to throw caution to the wind: “The Testaments” is worthy of the classic it continues. That’s thanks in part to Atwood’s capacity to surprise, even in a universe we think we know so well. And she starts by making us root for dastardly Aunt Lydia.
It is some 15 years after the conclusion of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which saw our pregnant heroine and Handmaid Offred whisked into a van, destined for either rescue or doom. She’s long gone from Gilead (where, we don’t know), and Aunt Lydia has taken up the forbidden pen to document the unfolding of a plot. “Right now I still have some choice in the matter. Not whether to die, but when and how. Isn’t that freedom of a sort?” Aunt Lydia writes. “Oh, and who to take down with me. I have made my list.”
The taskmaster of Offred’s early indoctrination has grown only more imposing over the years. She’s either a boogeyman or a saint, depending on the perspective. A statue erected in her honor looms. Her framed face looks down from every wall. She’s the most powerful woman in Gilead. Why, then, is she furtively setting pen to paper, stashing private documents for some future historian to unearth?
Atwood is patient in unpacking Aunt Lydia’s intentions and executing her plan, and does so with a dash of keen mordant wit. What emerges is a narrative of the downfall of Gilead constructed through historical records. Along with Aunt Lydia’s archived writings are two parallel testaments, those of Agnes Jemima of Gilead and Daisy of Canada. Both begin their stories as adolescents, Agnes the daughter of Commander Kyle and a wicked new stepmother, and Daisy a budding anti-Gilead activist. They are unalike in background and temperament, one a submissive flower and the other rebellious and carefree.
“The Testaments” builds in tension, becoming a fraught tale of subterfuge and spycraft as it toggles among the three narratives.
Meanwhile, Gilead’s patriarchal power structure begins to show stress fractures. In undermining women, the men of Gilead have also underestimated them: their capacity to gather intelligence and forge alliances even under constant surveillance, their inexhaustible patience and perseverance.
“How easily a hand becomes a fist,” Aunt Lydia writes. Through her, Atwood readies the fatal strike.