The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

"It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress, and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.

Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.

I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?

That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary."

"There were marches, of course, a lot of women and some men. But they were smaller than you might have thought. I guess people were scared. And when it was known that the police, or the army, or whoever they were, would open fire almost as soon as any of the marches even started, the marches stopped. A few things were blown up, post offices, subway stations. But you couldn't even be sure who was doing it. It could have been the army, to justify the computer searches and the others ones, the door-to-doors. . . .I didn't know many of the neighbors, and when we met, outside on the street, we were careful to exchange nothing more than the ordinary greetings. Nobody wanted to be reported, for disloyalty."

The Handmaid’s Tale is a brilliantly written terrifying look into a dystopian future version of the United States, a religious fascist ‘Republic of Gilead’, where women are valued only for their ability to bear children, where LGBTQ citizens and religious minorities and abortion doctors and political dissidents and anyone else who displeases the regime are executed and hung on a wall to rot in display, and where the “children of Ham” (a conservative Christian term for those of African descent) are being ‘resettled.’  We glimpse inside this terrifying, suffocating world through the eyes and scattered memories of a ‘handmaiden’ named Offred, learning the complicated history, personal and national, by which she has come to this intolerable position. Segments of the story seem too far-fetched to be possible—but are they? As you learn the slippery slope the led the USA into the Republic of Gilead, the future that Margaret Atwood imagines may not seem so far-fetched after all.

I’m not sure I’d call The Handmaid’s Tale a fun book, but it is an important book. It speaks truth in a way that is easy to read and hard to put down, that may follow you to sleep at night, that may echo in your mind when you hear the news and talk to those who endorse the joining of church and state. If ever there is a resistance read, this book is it, and is highly recommended for provoking thoughts of what could come if we are silent and complacent, and what we must do in order to ensure that this story is not our future. 

In addition, or if you are unable to read The Handmaid's Tale at the moment, Hulu has a new version of the story being released as a TV show, and it looks just as timely and chilling as the book. I can't wait to see it.