The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to bear children. If she deviates, she will be hanged at the wall like other deviants or sentenced to a slow death from radiation sickness. Yet even a repressive state cannot extinguish desire—neither Offred's nor that of the two men on whom her future depends. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of the twenty-first century unleashes Margaret Atwood's devastating irony, wit, and keen perception.