Mostly set inside the corrupt, brutal dictatorship of Gilead we read the testimonies of three characters. Aunt Lydia - the one narrator that links us to the earlier novel, The Handmaid's Tale. She is probably the most powerful woman in Gilead. She has the ear of one of the founding Commanders of this oppressive state. She also is the head of Ardua Hall, the training centre, archive and home for the Aunts of Gilead. She is the source. Highly placed in Gilead, she is waiting patiently for her moment to expose the corruption and injustice of the regime and bring it down. Destroy it.
She waits for Baby Nicole to return to Gilead. She will pass on to her the files, evidence of the appalling crimes committed in the State.
The second narrator is the daughter of a highly placed Commander and his wife. Her name is Agnus. However, - her mother - Tabatha is dead and the Commander wants another child. His new wife - Paula - wants Agnus - out of the way. Out. Married off. But she's terrified of marriage - especially to this founding Commander Judd. He's presented as a sexually depraved. She pleads with the Aunts to enrol her as an Aunt in Ardua Hall. This seems to be the only legitimate channel for women who don't want to be married in Gilead.
The third narrator is Baby Nicole. She is smuggled out of Gilead by her natural mother - a handmaid - before she could be taken to become the child of a Commander and wife. I think it's possible that Baby Nicole's handmaid mother is Offred the narrator of The Handmaid's Tale. Baby Nicole has lived the first 15 or so years of her life as Jade in Canada. She's cared for by her adopted parents - members of a terrorist organization - Mayday, committed to the destruction of Gilead.
Gilead wants Baby Nicole back. She's become a symbol of Gilead. They send spies into Canada - Pearl Girls to try and find her. Gilead gets close. They kill Jade's adopted parents.
Jade's told by other members of May Day that she has an important mission. She must return to Gilead - undercover - to meet the source. The source will give her files to smuggle back to Canada and there publicise and expose Gilead's crimes to the world.
And this is what she does.
So it's been 35 years since The Handmaid's Tale was published. I think what worked well for me in that novel was the simplicity of the narrative and the plot - and very little of that. What worked was the restricted nature of Offred's world view. The wider world is hinted at and inferred by Offred's narrative and rarely made explicit. Gilead and its corrupt and rigid power structure based on gender and class is presented in all its unsettling and disturbing reality.
In The Testaments Atwood broadens out our vision of Gilead. She pulls back the curtain a little further. So we get a clearer and more closely focused picture of Gilead. This is both satisfying and also frustrating. Satisfying, because we want to know more about the workings of this oppressive regime. And the novel delivers this for us. Frustrating, because we want our imaginations to wander through this dangerous and threatening world. Atwood treads a difficult path between these two poles. I think on the whole she's got it right. But only just.
Like The Handmaid's Tale, the prequel is similar in that the plot is slow developing. It's the presentation of Gilead and the development of character and relationships that dominates the novel. But then in the last fifth of the novel, the plot suddenly takes off, with Jade travelling back into Gilead, meeting Agnus and the source at Ardua Hall. She discovers that Agnus and Jade are sisters, and then finally returning to Canada with the evidence that will destroy Gilead.
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