‘She’s a prophet’: handmaids gather for Margaret Atwood’s midnight launch of The Testaments
September 16, 2019With cocktails and craftivism, fans and authors including Neil Gaiman and Jeanette Winterson countdown release of sequel
The last time bookshops saw this much action at midnight on a weekday, a certain boy wizard was on the shelves.
Theres not another Potter out? a passing man asks the growing queue outside Waterstones in Londons Piccadilly, where a parade of women dressed in red flowing robes and white bonnets are silently gliding by.
The costume of the handmaids the fertile women ritually raped to repopulate the dystopian theocracy of Margaret Atwoods 1985 novel The Handmaids Tale has a tinge of witchiness to it, though it has become, in a short period of time, iconic for something more: for feminist protest, from Ireland to Argentina; and an instantly recognisable bastion of pop culture that themed a Kylie Jenner party.
Hundreds of fans have lined up to attend the midnight launch of Atwoods much-anticipated sequel, The Testaments, which will be attended by the Canadian author herself. The ticketless hover nearby, asking if anyone knows when she is due to arrive.
Alongside the handmaids are a surprise for those yet to read the book: two Pearl Girls dressed in floor-length, silvery gowns, who stay steadfastly in character all night. She handed me an orange, says one girl in the queue, bewildered but impressed, cradling the fruit like a precious jewel (and not yet knowing she held a crucial plot detail).
The atmosphere inside the bookshop, just one of many around the world hosting a launch but the only attended by the author herself, would be familiar to any twentysomething who grew up on Harry Potter but is perhaps unexpected for a sequel to a 34-year old literary novel about the patriarchy. Inside, young women and the crowd is mostly women in their 20s and 30s, who probably grew up on Potter launches and the occasional mother or boyfriend are drinking acid-green mocktails, tucking into cupcakes and taking down the patriarchy through craftivism. More than one person says theyre dedicating their Tuesday to reading.
Kasey is there with her mother, Michaela, who gave her the book when she was 13. Ive been annoyed ever since then that it ended on such a cliffhanger, she says. A potential ending is so exciting.
Michaela was given the book for Christmas in 1985, and no one could speak to me because I was so engrossed. So much of what she has predicted has come true, especially with the Christian right in the US. I think shes a prophet.
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