The Testaments

It might seem strange to write a sequel to a book you'd written 35 years before, but with the popularity of the Hulu TV series based on her The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood returns to Gilead for The Testaments, which after a slow start amped up to a smashing finish.

To recap, Gilead is a nation that broke away from the United States and bases its laws on the Old Testament. It is a particularly harsh place for women, who are codified into distinct classes--the Wives, who are at the top, the Marthas, who are domestics, the Handmaids, who are simply vessels for child birth since many of the Wives can't conceive, and the Aunts, who are the teachers and disciplinarians.

The book is told from the point of view of three women: Aunt Lydia, the highest-respected Aunt, who has a statue of herself outside Ardua Hall, where the Aunts do their thing: "Only dead people are allowed to have statues, but I have been given one while still alive. Already I am petrified." She recounts how she became an Aunt, when the Gilead revolution took place, and career women were herded into a stadium and summarily executed. Lydia was a judge, but also a survivor, and was given a gun and took part in the shooting. But as he narrative continues, it becomes apparent that she is now plotting against the state.

The other narrators are two young women, one raised in Gilead, and one in Canada, which is free. Agnes is a girl in Gilead who finds that her parents are not who she thinks they are--she is the daughter of a handmaid. She is being trained to be a Wife, and just barely pubescent she is affianced to Commander Judd, one of the highest ranking men in government, who looks like Santa Claus and has had a string of child brides who have mysteriously died. When Agnes' friend Becka rejects her marriage, citing a phobia against penises, Agnes joins her in becoming an Aunt, where she is taken in by Lydia.

The third voice is Daisy, who grew up in Canada but we learn was spirited out of Gilead as a baby. She is recruited on a mission to infiltrate Gilead, meet a spy within, and take out evidence that is so damning that it would mean the fall of the country.

These three voices intersect until we get to the climax, with Agnes and Daisy escaping into Canada. It is unabashedly old-fashioned in its sense of adventure, as the girls end up in a boat rowing to the coast of Nova Scotia, and some may find this cliched, but I ate it up and read the last hundred pages in a flash.

Atwood has maintained that she has not written anything that has not happened somewhere in the world. The women of Gilead are not allowed to read (though the Aunts are) and wear uniforms and are brainwashed into thinking they are second-class citizens. There is also a savagery to the place, as men who are convicted of certain crimes (a dentist is condemned as a pedophile) are torn apart by Handmaids. But, as Lydia notes, the corruption is rampant.

When Daisy arrives in Gilead, accompanied by Pearl Girls (like Mormons, Gilead employs young girls as kind of missionaries) there is a bit of a culture shock, as she is modern, with green hair and a penchant for profanity. Agnes and Becka are assigned to her, and are aghast at her worldliness, but a connection between Agnes and Daisy soon emerges. In retrospect, I should have seen it coming.

The Testaments is powerful and exciting, a thriller with a deadly message. Some have called her creation of Gilead paranoid, but I'm not so sure. I think there are many in the United States who would welcome such a place with open arms.