Margaret Atwood's THE TESTAMENTS, Sequel to THE HANDMAID'S TALE Has Already Been Picked Up by Hulu
The 1985 Margaret Atwood novel The Handmaid’s Tale has gotten new life since the creation of the hugely popular series of the same name that came to Hulu in 2017. We just finished the third season, and fans are still on the edge of their seats grappling with the fate of June, played by the incredible Elisabeth Moss, and the other gripping characters in the story.
The Golden Globe and Emmy-winning series follows the lead character and many women like her, as she is ripped from the society she knows and thrust into the dystopian society of Gilead, separated from her husband and daughter, and forced to become a handmaid, or surrogate, for a well-off and politically important family who cannot conceive. The series feels so outlandish, yet so possible for a society at odds with the wrong people in control. It’s so incredibly gripping, you can’t look away.
While the series has already surged past the ending of June’s character (referred to in the book and much of the series as Offred – literally meaning of Fred, the commander of the house she is stationed at), and has taken liberties with the characters that surround her to fill out the story, the author of the book has written a sequel to the original story, and it will be great to hear it all in Atwood’s voice as she revisits the story herself.
The new book from Atwood is called The Testaments, and it will pick up fifteen years after the end of the first novel, with three female narrators. I can’t wait to hear the story it will tell. And apparently neither can the streaming service that is the home of The Handmaid’s Tale, Hulu, as they have already picked up the rights to the next installment. It’s only right, as they’ve done such an incredible job with the story thus far.
While speaking with EW, Atwood teased how elements of The Testaments may or may not be used in those forthcoming episodes:
“What I have given them, in the locked writers’ room that nobody’s allowed into — including me — is a whole new whiteboard and a bunch of new characters. The story of the characters in the show at the moment is left open, so it’s up to Bruce and the highly competent writing team as to how they get those people into position.”
The Testaments hits shelves on September 10th. Will you be picking up a copy?