'The Testaments' Takes Us Back To Gilead For A Fast-Paced, Female-Centered Adventure
Margaret Atwood's long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale brings readers new voices (and one familiar one) and a whole new view of Gilead, the dystopian theocracy that was once the United States.
What do the men of Gilead do all day?
We learn very little about it in The Testaments. We hear of one who mostly shuts himself in his study, away from his family, to work all day. We learn that a high-ranking government official serially kills off each of his teenage wives once they get too old for his tastes, then seeks out new targets. We learn that another respected man is a pedophile who gropes young girls.
So. We know that Gilead men are at best nonentities, at worst monstrous. Beyond that, they are chilly, dull, uninterested in the women around them — to the point that
