The Handmaid's Tale

By: Margaret Atwood

Narrated by: Claire Danes

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.

The Handmaid's Tale is part of Audible’s A-List Collection, featuring the world's most celebrated actors narrating distinguished works of literature that each star had a hand in selecting. For more great books performed by Hollywood's finest, click here.©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)

Excellent

Beautifully written with such important themes and messages just as applicable today as they were when I first read it in 1996 and when it was published in 1985. An important read.

Excellent writing, excellent performance

Margaret Atwood at her best: keenly intelligent, perceptive, funny. Her love of words, combined with Claire Danes’ pitch-perfect reading make for an especially satisfying listen.

A Masterful Work of Fiction

Poetically written and masterfully done. And Clare Danes was the perfect narrator. As many others are saying, this is a timely book.

Great book...

Any additional comments?

Claire Danes is a brilliant actor, and I've read this book years ago but with her as the story teller I was inclined to listen to it again. To be honest, I was a little disappointed by Claire Danes as the performer of the book. It took a good two or three chapters to wrap my head around her delivery of the text, but the text is so strong that whatever it was about Claire's performance was overshadowed by the story itself. I mean, she wasn't bad, but I guess I just expected so much more because when you see her on the screen as an actor she's really, really good. Really good. If it was anyone else putting in this performance it would be good, but because you expect so much more from Claire Danes the performance is just alright.

Strangely, I don't remember the book being written first person, present tense the first time I read it, but there it is, told in the first person/present tense, exactly how everyone tells you NOT to write. Again, it was distracting for a while, but once you got into the story you didn't notice so much.

I've read a few of Atwood's books, and they aren't necessarily my favourite, but post-apocalyptic stories are strangely fascinating to me and this story is well wrought and disturbing because it feels like it could happen, that we are laying the groundwork for it to happen if we aren't careful.

Anyway, A Handmaid's Tale is a great story and worth listening to, and Claire Danes is good but not brilliant by her standards, but good enough. Give it a go, you'll enjoy the story or come away scared by how possible it all is.

Wow

Any additional comments?

This is just an incredible book. Atwood's metaphors, allusions and insights are all top notch. A true masterwork of writing. Any student of literature should have this on their list of great books. As for the audiobook version I thought Claire Danes did a fantastic job reading this with emphasis and soul. She really added an extra emotional component to the reading that other non-actors might not have been able to bring.