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| Categories | Genre Fiction |
| Author | Margaret Atwood |
| Publisher | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; First Edition (September 1, 2020) |
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 448 pages |
| Item Weight | 2.31 pounds |
| Dimensions |
5.19 x 0.93 x 7.98 inches |
I. Book introduction
The Testaments is a modern masterpiece, a powerful novel that can be read on its own or as a companion to Margaret Atwood’s classic, The Handmaid’s Tale.
“Atwood’s powers are on full display” (Los Angeles Times) in this deeply compelling Booker Prize-winning novel, now updated with additional content that explores the historical sources, ideas, and material that inspired Atwood.
More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.
Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third: Aunt Lydia. Her complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways.
With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.
Plot summary
The novel alternates among the perspectives of three women, presented as portions of a manuscript written by one (the Ardua Hall Holograph) and testimonies by the other two.
Lydia, a divorced judge, is imprisoned with other women in a stadium during the establishment of the Republic of Gilead. After enduring weeks of squalid conditions, torture, and solitary confinement, culminating in coerced participation in an execution, she and a small group of other women are handpicked by Commander Judd and Vidala, a pre-existing supporter of Gilead, to become Aunts—an elite group of women tasked with creating and overseeing the laws and uniforms governing Gilead’s women. The Aunts use Ardua Hall as their headquarters and enjoy certain privileges that include reading “forbidden” texts, such as Cardinal John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua. In secret, Aunt Lydia despises Gilead and becomes a mole supplying critical information to the Mayday resistance organization.
Fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, a girl named Agnes Jemima is growing up in Boston as the adopted daughter of Commander Kyle and his wife Tabitha. Agnes has a loving relationship with Tabitha, who later dies of ill health. Agnes and her classmates Becka and Shunammite attend an elite preparatory school for the daughters of Commanders, where they are taught to run a household, but not to become literate. Once widowed, Commander Kyle marries Paula, the widow of a deceased Commander, who despises Agnes. Desiring a child for herself, she acquires a Handmaid, who successfully conceives but later dies giving birth to a son. Agnes is arranged to be married to Commander Judd, now a high-ranking official in charge of the Eyes and surveilling the population of Gilead.
Learning that she is the daughter of a Handmaid, Agnes manages to escape her arranged marriage by becoming a Supplicant, a prospective Aunt. In that pursuit she joins Becka, whose father—Doctor Grove, a prominent dentist—has been sexually abusing her and his other underage female patients for years. Later, Agnes is anonymously provided with files highlighting the corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of Gilead, specifically evidence of adultery between Commander Kyle and Paula and their plots to murder their respective spouses since divorce is prohibited. She also learns that she is the half-sister of “Baby Nicole”, a girl who was smuggled out of Gilead to Canada by her Handmaid mother when she was young (and whose return the government of Gilead has been demanding).
Meanwhile, a girl named Daisy—several years younger than Agnes—grows up in Toronto’s Queen Street West with her adoptive parents, Neil and Melanie. The couple owns a second-hand clothes shop serving as a front for Mayday to smuggle women out of Gilead. On her 16th birthday, Daisy’s adoptive parents are murdered by undercover Gileadean operatives. Daisy is spirited into hiding by several Mayday operatives, who reveal that Daisy is actually Nicole. The Mayday operatives enlist her in a mission to infiltrate Gilead to obtain valuable intelligence from their mysterious mole. Nicole poses as a street urchin named Jade to be recruited by the Pearl Girls (Gilead missionaries who lure foreign women to Gilead with the promise of a better life), who take her up and bring her into Gilead.
The disguised Nicole is placed under the care of Agnes and Becka, who are now respectively named Aunts Victoria and Immortelle. Aunt Lydia confirms that “Jade” is Nicole through a tattoo and discloses her true identity and parentage to Agnes and Becka. Revealing herself as Mayday’s mole, Aunt Lydia enlists the three young women to smuggle incriminating information about Gilead’s elite into Canada. Nicole is tasked with carrying the files inside a microdot on her cruciform tattoo. Agnes and Nicole are to enter Canada disguised as Pearl Girls, with Nicole impersonating Becka. The real Becka, disguised as Jade, is to remain at the Hall and provide a diversion once Nicole is found missing. Forced to hasten their plans when Commander Judd learns about Nicole’s presence and intends to marry her, Agnes and Nicole set out early, where they hospitalise Aunt Vidala in the process. They travel by bus and on foot, then by boat along the Penobscot River. This boat takes them to a larger vessel which brings them into Canadian waters. Agnes and Nicole manage to reach Campobello Island by an inflatable and are picked up by a Mayday team. Meanwhile, Aunt Lydia, to buy Agnes and Nicole some more time and to secure her own position at Ardua Hall, tells Aunt Elizabeth that Aunt Vidala accused her of attacking her, expecting Elizabeth to kill Vidala.
Using the information inside Nicole’s microdot, the Canadian media leaks scandalous information about Gilead’s elite, which leads to a purge that in turn causes a military coup, bringing about the collapse of Gilead and the subsequent restoration of the United States. Agnes and Nicole are reunited with their mother. Becka dies while hiding in a cistern to perpetuate the ruse that “Jade” had run off with a plumber. Lydia, the author of the Ardua Hall Holograph, closes her story by describing her plan to commit suicide with a morphine overdose before she can be questioned and executed.
The novel concludes with a metafictional epilogue, described as a partial transcript at the Thirteenth Symposium on Gileadean Studies in 2197, presented by Professor James Darcy Pieixoto. He talks about the challenges in verifying the authenticity of the Ardua Hall Holograph and the two witness transcripts by Agnes and Nicole. He also speculates that Agnes and Nicole’s Handmaid mother could be Offred of the previous book, though he himself admits to not being sure. He concludes by mentioning the statue that was made commemorating Becka for her actions, its dedication having been attended by Agnes and Nicole, their husbands and children, their mother and their respective fathers.
About the Author (Margaret Atwood)
Margaret Atwood (Margaret Eleanor Atwood, born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, and literary critic. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children’s books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her best-known work is the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General’s Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.
Atwood’s works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and “power politics”. Many of her poems are inspired by myths and fairy tales which interested her from a very early age.
Margaret Atwood is a founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Writers’ Trust of Canada. She is also a Senior Fellow of Massey College, Toronto. She is the inventor of the LongPen device and associated technologies that facilitate remote robotic writing of documents.
II. Reviewer: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
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1. CHARLOTTE MAY reviews for The Testaments
“But I had a third eye, in the middle of my forehead. I could feel it: it was cold, like a stone. It did not weep: it saw. And behind it someone was thinking: ‘I will get you back for this. I don’t care how long it takes or how much shit I have to eat in the meantime, but I will do it.”
I wasn’t sure at first how well a sequel written so long after book 1 would go down. I loved The Handmaid’s Tale and I couldn’t think how the story could have continued.
However, this sequel was fantastic! There are three POVs. Agnes Gemina, brought up in a commander’s household in Gilead; the infamous Aunt Lydia and her villainous ways and finally Daisy, living in Canada with her parents – but with a secret identity.
The Testaments gives a different outlook on Gilead, we see things from the Aunt’s perspective, we see part of the founding of Gilead and it’s construction.
I loved the ending. It was absolutely what I wanted from it, couldn’t have asked for anything else.
2. PAULA K reviews for The Testaments
Co-winner of the Booker prize 2019
Brilliant! Absolutely phenomenal!
What a fantastic ride coming back to the world of Gilead 15 years later. The sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale is written very different from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic, but in no way does it suffer as a follow-up. The Testaments is superbly narrated by three women- two young women with one who escaped to Canada as a child, the other raised in Gilead, and, last but not least, the very powerful and dangerous, Aunt Lydia. I am thankful to have listened to the audiobook as the voice of Aunt Lydia is narrated by the formidable actress Ann Dowd who plays said character in the amazing Hulu series.
If you wish to learn about the secrets of Gilead and how Aunt Lydia got to where she was, do read this book. It is exceptionally suspenseful and entertaining and meshes well with the Hulu series.
The Testaments gave me the shivers many times while listening…so frightening at times…
5 out of 5 Booker worthy stars
3. MICHAEL FINOCCHIARO reviews for The Testaments
In The Testaments, Margaret Atwood brings a thrilling conclusion to the story she started with The Handmaid’s Tale about the dystopian Gilead. It does not contradict the previous novel and is not inconsistent with the television series starting the amazing Elisabeth Moss.
One of the key differences between this book and its predecessor is that rather than being narrated by June/Offred, this book has multiple narratives: Aunt Lydia (the same one from before), Agnes (a Commander’s daughter inside Gilead), and Daisy (a slightly older girl in Toronto). I enjoyed seeing the story from Aunt Lydia’s point of view as well as the intertwined stories of the other two girls. There is a lot of suspense here, perhaps less innovation though since we are already familiar with Gilead and its eccentricities from The Handmaid’s Tale, but I think that Atwood did a nice job filling in some blanks and in bringing us some closure with some of our favorite characters.
In order to avoid spoilers, I will just say that I found this book very satisfying and deserving of the Man Booker Prize which it won in 2019.
4. M. ALLEN reviews for The Testaments
Almost Perfect
I was surprised to receive this first edition collectible hardback in a paper envelope with no padding or additional protection. I’m happy to report that USPS, as always, came to the rescue and delivered it safe and sound. I am pleased with the price, and I always appreciate independent bookstores and booksellers taking the extra step to sell on Amazon. You might consider shipping in a box next time.
5. M.D. ROSSI reviews for The Testaments
Great Resolution to First Novel and TV Series
In my opinion, you don’t have to read the first book to understand this sequel that she wrote if you have seen the Hulu series. However, you might need to have watched the Hulu series if you read “The Testaments” because you will need to know who baby Nicole and Agnes are. Baby Nicole was never in the original The Handmaid’s Tale book-it’s purely from the show-because we never find out what happened to the original handmaid in the book (in fact she doesn’t even have a name as she does in the show) and we never know if she had a baby or not, but in the show she had a baby named Nicole. In the book I also don’t think we knew what happened to the handmaid’s first daughter Hannah-who later was given to another family and renamed Agnes in the tv series. So it’s important that people who only read the book understand who these two characters are. “The Testaments” are a collection of testimonies from two Gilead survivors and also from an Aunt. I found it to be very interesting how Margaret Atwood wrote a whole plot that carries on with this idea of a baby Nicole from the show and basically gives a resolution to her story in her first novel. I feel that the author reclaimed her Aunt Lydia character because in the show her backstory focused so much on Aunt Lydia being a school teacher who becomes vindictive after she was rejected on a date-something that struck me as strange because that did not happen in the novel and seemed uncharacteristic of such a strong character from such a feminist-based novel, but in “The Testaments” she centers her story on how Aunt Lydia used to be a judge at one point. This book provides a little insight into how the aunts became aunts, why they have certain powers and privileges and the complexity of their roles as both protectors and oppressors. The first novel didn’t show much of “the resistance” but this new novel takes a more active role of a period of time that happened more than 16 years after the ending of the novel and the show. There is resolution to the story and certain characters will find redemption. I could walk away from the show now and feel as if I have found an ending because this novel will provide it. I think if you liked the novel you will like this book-there is much more action than in the first novel but you will need to research this baby Nicole show storyline first. If you have only watched the show and enjoyed it, you will find a little resolution with some of the characters in the show. At the end of this book it also has an interesting interview with Margaret Atwood in which she discussed that everything that happens in her books and the show has historically happened somewhere, however unbelievable it seems. For example, this idea of forced pregnancy came from Romania in the 1960s-80s when the dictator forced women to have 4 children, submit to monthly pregnancy tests and provide explanations as to why they weren’t pregnant etc. I really recommend this book. I read it in two days because I was HOOKED!
6. KRISTINE reviews for The Testaments
Great Sequel
I read Margaret Atwood’s “The Testaments” after reading “The Handmaid’s Tail”. They were both very good, especially with the political atmosphere in the US right now. “The Testaments” continues along with the story line in a little bit of a different direction but ties it all together in a most satisfying way. If you have read the first novel I highly recommend you follow up with this one.
7. JOANNA D. reviews for The Testaments
The Memoirs of Aunt Lydia and the Fall of Gilead
“Testaments” is the long-awaited sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale” first a bestselling novel by distinguished Canadian author Margaret Atwood and then a wildly successful series based on the book on Hulu.
If you expected a “happily ever after” story about “Offred” that isn’t this book. It’s more about the fall of the dystopian and non-functional Gilead from the point of view of some of the women, gender-traitors, who run the regime and also some of the young women born into the system. Haven’t you wondered what a young girl would think of her impending marriage in such a world where women are vessels, not allowed to read and treated as chattel?
Best of all in this book is the story of Agnes Jemima, a young girl growing up as a daughter of a Commander and a Wife. She’s an innocent, trying to make sense of the Gilead world where everything is kept secret or is an out-and-out deception. Her simplistic voice is almost like that of Offred in the original Handmaid book, with its cool observation and background of confusion about what went on before or behind her back.
Then we get the “autobiography” and first-person story of Aunt Lydia, the moral guardian of the Gilead society. As well as some of the story of the “Underground Female-Road” and the resistance (Mayday Movement) The deeper look into the complex villain Aunt Lydia fleshes out the cartoonish cruel and vicious prison matron picture into something much more interesting.
I wondered how such a dysfunctional society bent on execution, control and utter despondency could survive for long, so here is the sequel filling in that story.
8. BABA reviews for The Testaments
How do you follow up what I considered the masterpiece that was/is The Handmaid’s Tale? Well this sequel pretty much ticks all the boxes, as three first-person narrators tell the story of the rise of ultra male chauvinist, racist, nativist, mono-theocratic Gilead; the powers, plights and politics engulfing the Aunts; and the possible start of the fall of Gilead.
The three stories pot wise are griping and worth the wait and I presume you can read summaries of them in multiple reviews; but what struck me was the delightfully detailed and well thought expansive reality building that took the limited insular and suffocating seed of The Handmaid’s Tale, and like in the original Wizard of Oz, plunges the reader into colour ripping the plaster off of Gilead and the wider world and giving the reality context including the reactions and response of the rest of the USA and wider world. I’m pretty sure I will Five Star this on re-reading, but for now this gem of a sequel gets an 9 out of 12, firm Four Stars from me. Jut read them both already, Praise Be.
2024 read
9. DIANE BARNES reviews for The Testaments
When it comes to highly anticipated books, assuming it’s one I actually want to read, I like to get hold of a copy early on and read it before the hype gets started. In this case, I re-read Handmaid’s Tale a few months ago to get a fresh take, then put a hold on this one at the library to ensure being at the head of the line. I did watch the first season of the Hulu series, since I had been told that followed the first book very closely, but stopped there until the book was published.
My opinion is this: Handmaid’s Tale was complete in itself for me. I had never expected a continuation of Offred’s story, and when she climbed into the back of that van, my imagination could continue her story or end it. It was my choice.
However, I appreciated The Testaments for the new insights it afforded into the world of Gilead. Set 15 years after the end of Handmaid, we see the realities of the wives, the children, and most importantly, the Aunts. The Aunts make us realize that true power lies with those who know things, and men who underestimate women’s strength are doomed. Maybe that’s what Atwood is trying to say. Strength is not limited to the physical, intelligence and guile can be just as effective. But then, we women have always known that, haven’t we?
10. ZOEYTRON reviews for The Testaments
The strength of silence, the power of knowledge. Signs and the interpretation of signs, suspicion cloaking every action, color-coded clothing. Returning to Gilead was interesting, to say the least. If you are a woman, your money is not your own. Understand that women’s brains are too small to spawn big ideas. You get the drift, am I right? It’s a frightening business.
I read The Handmaid’s Tale over 30 years ago. Although I still have my copy, I did not read it again before delving into The Testaments, nor have I seen the series made for television. So it would be fair to say the story was not fresh in my mind. Not sure if that helped or hindered with how I viewed this book.
III. The Testaments Quotes by Margaret Atwood
The best book quotes from The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
“You’d be surprised how quickly the mind goes soggy in the absence of other people. One person alone is not a full person: we exist in relation to others. I was one person: I risked becoming no person.”
“You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you.”
“No one wants to die,” said Becka. “But some people don’t want to live in any of the ways that are allowed.”
“As they say, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
“Once a story you’ve regarded as true has turned false, you begin suspecting all stories.”
“The truth can cause a lot of trouble for those who are not supposed to know it.”
“And how easily a hand becomes a fist.”
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one most travelled by. It was littered with corpses, as such roads are. But as you will have noticed, my own corpse is not among them.”
“Being able to read and write did not provide answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others.”
“The inventor of the mirror did few of us any favours: we must have been happier before we knew what we looked like.”
“But it can put a lot of pressure on a person to be told they need to be strong.”
“Nobody is any authority on the fucks other people give,”
“Where there is an emptiness, the mind will obligingly fill it up. Fear is always at hand to supply any vacancies, as is curiosity. I have had ample experience with both.”
“You pride yourself on being a realist, I told myself, so face the facts. There’s been a coup, here in the United States, just as in times past in so many other countries. Any forced change of leadership is always followed by a move to crush the opposition. The opposition is led by the educated, so the educated are the first to be eliminated.”
“We’re stretched thin, all of us; we vibrate; we quiver, we’re always on the alert. Reign of terror, they used to say, but terror does not exactly reign. Instead it paralyzes. Hence the unnatural quiet.”
“All that was necessary was a law degree and a uterus: a lethal combination.”
“Still, I wanted to believe; indeed I longed to; and, in the end, how much of belief comes from longing?”
“It’s better that way, and I am a great proponent of better. In the absence of best.”
“Totalitarianisms may crumble from within, as they fail to keep the promises that brought them to power; or they may be attacked from without; or both. There are no sure-fire formulas, since very little in history is inevitable”
“I was the age at which parents suddenly transform from people who know everything into people who know nothing. —”
“How can I have behaved so badly, so cruelly, so stupidly? you will ask. You yourself would never have done such things! But you yourself will never have had to.”
“underlings given sudden power frequently become the worst abusers of it.”
“You take the first step, and to save yourself from the consequences, you take the next one. In times like ours, there are only two directions: up or plummet.”
“You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you.”
“Life is not about hair,” I said then, only half jocularly. Which is true, but it is also true that hair is about life. It is the flame of the body’s candle, and as it dwindles the body shrinks and melts away.”
“Giving up was the new normal, and I have to say it was catching.”
“The muscles of my face were beginning to hurt. Under some conditions, smiling is a workout.”
“I was buying time. One is always buying something.”
“I, too, was once like you: fatally hooked on life.”
“How tedious is a tyranny in the throes of enactment. It’s always the same plot.”
Excerpted from The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
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