“A novel by Margaret Atwood” The Handmaid’s Tale is set in some indeterminate time in a near future Maine, in New England, USA. It is a dystopian period when Maine has cut itself off from the rest of the USA and has established a completely new, male dominated, religious order called Gilead where the commanders control everything and everyone. Those who conspire against the established order or who infringe its rules are regularly hanged and then hung up on a display wall as a disincentive for others. The Handmaid of the tale, Offred, has only one function in life and that is to bear a child to the commander to whom she has been assigned. The actual act of procreation is complicated by the extremely close presence of his wife throughout the process, this to make sure that neither the commander nor the handmaid derives any pleasure from the union. Handmaids are never allowed to use their birth names but are named after their current commander. Other characters with cleaning, cooking, chauffeuring, or snooping duties to perform add further interest for the reader. People have found the book controversial on various grounds including sex, offensive language, violence, and other things. I found it rather hard going. Indeed, a book that length would normally take me a week to read comfortably but instead it took three or four weeks to wade through. Bernard Gallivan March 2019