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Who exactly was Offred?
What happened to her next?
Offred was the heroine of her own story and her own story alone.
Like most of us.
She is far more than that in the TV adaptation of the genre-spanning 1985 classic.
Praise effing be to a point.
For me, the sense of relief on encountering an Offred-free sequel was personal.
This novel is essentially a brilliantly written inspirational slogan T-shirt.
Our three new(ish) voices enter the picture 15 years after the end ofThe Handmaids Tale.
Who are you, my reader?
Aunt Lydia asks, And when are you?
Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps 50 years from now, perhaps never.
What a wretch Aunt Lydia is at the start, goading her readers.
Think how much worse [Gilead] could have been if not for me.
She stops being Aunt Lydia and turns into a Complicated Woman.
How tedious is a tyranny in the throes of enactment.
And so it heads in the opposite direction, toward universal greatness and heroism.
ReadingThe Handmaids Tale, we cried out in pain for the women of Gilead.
WithThe Testaments, were crying out in frustration.
