The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she
deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to
die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot
obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her
future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation
of twenty-first century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwood's
devastating irony, wit and astute perception.