This book has three narrators, two young women and one old one, none of them a Handmaid, each narrating her own chapters. In The Testaments, Gilead is long established and has become the new normal, accreting bureaucracy and fighting pointless wars. It’s told from Offred’s point of view, the view of a shocked and traumatized prisoner. The Handmaid’s Tale took place in the early days of Gilead, as its puritanical, fascist government took hold.

Only the first season of The Handmaid’s Tale is based directly on Atwood’s novel Seasons 2 and 3, and the upcoming 4, continue the story far beyond the moment when Atwood left Offred stepping into a van, her future unknown.Īlthough she makes a few nods to the series, Atwood lightly leaps over most of it, setting The Testaments 15 years later than The Handmaid’s Tale, both within Gilead and outside it. In a way, there’s already a sequel: the TV series. The American Booksellers Association called for “the appropriate federal agencies (to) thoroughly investigate Amazon’s destructive business practices.” Independent booksellers, for whom the book’s debut would be perhaps this year’s most profitable event, were furious. Todd Doughty, executive director for publicity at Doubleday, wrote in a terse statement, “A very small number of copies of Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments were distributed early due to a retailer error which has now been rectified.' With the embargo smashed, a number of publications rushed out their reviews. 10 publication date, or even to open the shipping boxes.Ī week before the publication date, the giant online retailer sent out an unknown number of copies of The Testaments to American customers who had ordered in advance. Booksellers were required to sign unusually stringent contracts, complete with financial penalties, promising not to sell the novel before its Sept. No early copies for critics those few who did get copies were required to sign strict nondisclosure agreements, their reviews embargoed until the book’s publication.Īmong those who got their hands on The Testaments early were the judges for Great Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize, who included the novel as one of the six short-listed for the 2019 award.Ī first printing of half a million copies was scheduled. Talese/Doubleday (an imprint of Penguin Random House) was keeping it under tighter wraps than the Mueller Report.

Margaret atwood the testaments