The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood

A much-hyped sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments takes a similar path, purporting to be witness accounts from the tyrannical regime of Gilead. This time the tale is told from three points of view, which enables Atwood to take a long view from the very beginning of Gilead to around 15 years after the time of June’s story. This is a very clever device that picks up on elements of the television series, which extended June’s story beyond the Handmaid’s Tale, without relying on the changes made. The three voices belong to Aunt Lydia, a founder of the regime; Agnes Jemima, daughter of a commander; and Daisy, a Canadian orphan. This allows examination of the history of Gilead and how it developed, its inner workings and contradictions and the fight against it, both inside and out. We see how victims become perpetrators as a means of survival and how there are many forms of rebellion and resistance. The accounts are gripping and shed a new light on Gilead, but the tale falters a little when the three strands are woven together. What should become a nice, strong plait of a story is let down by stray strands that stretch credulity in the same way as the TV series. Intricate plans leave a bit too much to chance; miraculous strokes of luck and coincidence save the day; and those in a position to ask obvious questions and uncover the truth remain quiet and/or ignorant. The postscript of an academic symposium makes for a clever and amusing conclusion to the chronicles of Gilead. It will be interesting to see what, if anything the TV series makes of it, given how thinly it has stretched the original material so far.