Protesters dressed in the distinctive red robes and white bonnets of the handmaids have haunted legislatures voting on abortion rights and stood sentry outside hearings for a US Supreme Court nominee accused of sexual assault.
As if that wasn't enough of a build-up,The Testaments was shortlisted for the Booker Prize before it had even been published. The judges had to sign"a ferocious non-disclosure agreement"that prevented them saying anything about why they had listed the book except this:"It's terrifying and exhilarating."
It's both of those things,as well as sly and funny,filled with Atwood's characteristic joyful and subversive wordplay. And while much of the discussion will,rightly,be about its relationship to our present political realities,it shouldn't go unmentioned that everything else aside,Atwood is a bloody great storyteller. The pages of this great big book all but turn themselves.
The Testaments takes place 15 years after the end ofThe Handmaid's Tale. This means that fans of the television adaptation don't need to disregard the story told in the second and third seasons of the show (the first season stuck closely to the novel) and that those who've not seen the show won't be confused or irritated by the imposition of TV plot points.