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.

Explore more titles performed by some of the most celebrated actors in the business in Audible’s Star-Powered Listens collection.

©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)

Made me think...

Where are we headed? How does our experience, perspective and environment affect our perception and recollection of events?

Sad, Sadder, than Saddest

Kudos to the author for creating a culture, rooted in the reality of beliefs held even now by more than a few. It seems the book has withstood the test of some time. Claire Danes performance, though, added to the bleakness of the horrible state of affairs. Overwhelmingly flat and sad, with so little change in rhythm, rate, or volume, her voice made it difficult for me to stay awake and engaged. I respect and admire Ms. Danes, but a professional should be able to bring some nuance to misery. I certainly wasn’t looking for yucks, but the sameness of her voice forced me to take off the headphones and read, like in the “olden days.”

Interesting, but rather depressing

I stayed with it because the writing was good and Claire Danes is an excellent reader. But, I don't know, I was just left with a sense of having wasted some really good listening hours on a depressing story that took me nowhere edifying and left me there.

Dystopian novel for scary times

Really interesting to read during COVID and fascinating story about the subjugation of women. Slow start but got into it!

A disturbing dystopia

Gilead has a declining population and the totalitarian regime has implemented a system to address this. Except for the wives of commanders, the men in power, all women are categorized. Older women are either "Aunts" who teach the handmaidens, cooks or sent out to the colonies to clear radioactive areas. Women who are still able to have children are selected as handmaidens to serve as vessels for the commanders' offspring or sterilized and turned into objects to satisfy the commanders' sexual desires or sent to the colonies. There is no freedom for women beyond these roles and they are not allowed to read or write. Those who resist, if discovered, are hanged for all to see.

Atwood creates a dystopia where women have lost all their freedoms and are subjected to very limited options. Several of the details she shares via the narrator, a handmaiden, are reminiscent of historical situations for women. She captures the facility with which a society like this one could exist.

Very good! Story and narrator

After watching the show on Hulu, I wanted to compare it to the book. There were slight differences but I thought the overall adaptation of the story to screen was good.

It was interesting to gain a little more insight at the end with the historical notes.

I was surprised that I enjoyed Claire Danes so much as a narrator. I thought her familiar voice might be distracting. I actually think it asses to the story bc it made you feel somewhat more connected to the story.

Now I’m off to see what the testaments holds for June’s journey

such a good book

In all honesty
this feel like it happening now. As if any moment this could happen to us

haunting, depressing, engrossing

Margaret Atwood is a wordsmith worthy of the highest praises. she weaves a gloomy, sterile world so convincing you feel like you too are a handmaid. Claire Danes has a similarly intense and convincing performance. I am picky about audio books but this is one I would recommend to anyone.

good, but over rated in my opinion

Narration was great, but plot was under developed in favor of presenting overall thought provocation.

Bravo!

No one could have done it better than Ms. Claire Danes. She killed it. Bravo!