The Handmaid's Tale

By: Margaret Atwood

Narrated by: Claire Danes

Length: 11 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Audie Award, Fiction, 2013

Margaret Atwood's popular dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale explores a broad range of issues relating to power, gender, and religious politics. Multiple Golden Globe award-winner Claire Danes (Romeo and Juliet, The Hours) gives a stirring performance of this classic in speculative fiction, one of the most powerful and widely read novels of our time.

After a staged terrorist attack kills the President and most of Congress, the government is deposed and taken over by the oppressive and all-controlling Republic of Gilead. Offred, now a Handmaid serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife, can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name. Despite the danger, Offred learns to navigate the intimate secrets of those who control her every move, risking her life in breaking the rules in hopes of ending this oppression.

Cover Art by Fred Marcellino. Used with permission of Pippin Properties, Inc.

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©1985 Margaret Atwood (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Claire Danes sparkles in this performance…Danes’s Offred is complex, and her flashes of intense strength highlight her vulnerability. This is a consuming listen, thanks to Danes’s emotional subtleties.” (AudioFile)

Not bad

Not bad for a Canadian feminist it reminds me of the turner diaries how it’s written a diary read in the future

brilliant all around

Any additional comments?

Fantastic performance of a classic well deserving of the title. Thoroughly absorbing from start to finish.

Brilliant

Too realistic for comfort, that's for sure. Recognized lots of these patterns from history and current life, which really makes you think. I breezed through this. Interesting, well performed, and beautifully arranged as a narrative.

Still relevant

Surprisingly modern considering it was written 30 years ago. The issues she raises still are relevant today. Great book. Highly recommend.

Wow

This book was ambiguous and the way the narrator tells the story leaves you hungering for more information. It is fragmented, as thoughts often tend to be. I like Claire Danes' narration... but then, I always liked her acting. It felt real. This book broke my heart and provoked so much thought about the events that could really happen if the right set of circumstances were to present themselves. Great read

copyright 1986! crazily relevant & even prescient!

This book was published in 1985? That is crazy especially for how it foreshadowed events to come in history, an example being the impetus for suspending the Constitution, which heralded the creation of Gilead. WOW! I recommend reading and staying with this book. It will make you uncomfortable at first but don't let that dissuade you from continuing the journey. My only let down was the abrupt ending and therefore being left without closure. Not that I can think of a better way to end it. I'm glad of the last chapter as a sort of ending from a future that seems to point to an understanding of Gilead as a social experiment gone mad. The fact that past tense is used at least brings some comfort to the reader that this regime didn't last. But of course it couldn't, or could it? That's the scary part. That and of course more...

The Voice

Maybe anything would hold ones attention delivered by Danes. Atwood and Danes together is difficult to put down. There is no romance, no black ops, no vampires, no self help or WW history or the girl and the whatever. It is a genre unto itself. I barely finished before seeking out another Atwood.

Not a fun book but a good one!

What made the experience of listening to The Handmaid's Tale the most enjoyable?

This story is well written and compelling and Claire Danes gave an excellent performance! While I loved the narration and the writing, the story was deeply disturbing and a bit painful to get through. (My empathy meter is generally set to high when it comes to injustices and this book had it pegged.)

such wit, thought and poignancy

This book is so important in so many ways and on so many levels...socially, psychologically, philosophically, literarily, lyrically...love, love, love Margaret Atwood!

Scary look at a potential look of the future!

Keeps you interested, surprising end, and a really messed up look at how things may end up!

Claire Danes did a wonderful job of narrating.

My only complaint with not only this book, is when there is a change in subject matter, there is no pause to reflect as such. More of an editing issue.