Review

Margaret Atwood's sensational followup to The Handmaid's Tale is every bit as wonderful and terrifying

By Marion Halligan
Updated July 2 2021 - 1:37am, first published September 21 2019 - 5:00am
Author Margaret Atwood has released a sensational sequel to her bestselling novel The Handmaid's Tale. Picture: Getty Images
Author Margaret Atwood has released a sensational sequel to her bestselling novel The Handmaid's Tale. Picture: Getty Images

Some years ago Margaret Atwood came to Canberra and she and I had a conversation, facilitated by Andrea Stretton. She was publicising Oryx and Crake. My new book was The Point. She'd read it, and claimed to see some similarities. She displayed habits that I have since observed in the interviews for her latest work: she simply does not answer any questions about the book. She is entirely charming about it but just doesn't do it. This was quite hard for Andrea and me, since there was a theme we were supposed to be discussing. We did our best. We told ourselves that she was tired from her book tour, something like seven cities in six days.

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