“It made me so mad!” My creative writing class  was full of the “non-traditional” students that had always formed the majority who attended my university, and they seemed to be passing around this book like my seventh grade class had passed around Judy Blume’s Forever. 

“Me, too!” said another. “I gave it to my husband and he said ‘ah, so?’ and it made me so mad that he would act that way, ‘don’t you see how infuriating it is?’ I asked him.”

“What book?” I, the more “traditionally” aged student asked.

“The Handmaid’s Tale,” they all chimed. I made a note. A book that had a room full of women this worked up must be good. Access to the New York Times Book Review was limited in those days before the internet, and pretty much a legend to me, so I learned of contemporary literature primarily through the Houston Chronicle Zest on Sundays or by wandering in bookstores to make note of books to find in the library or at Half-Price Books. Any recommendation was welcome, especially if it promised some dystopian feminist tale for my protofeminist mind. Fortunately, no one had checked it out of our university library. (Perhaps my peers did not read as much as we old folks now like to remember that our generation did.)

That was in 1989. I’d swear I had read the book again since, but don’t think I have, not even as an audiobook. In fact, I’m pretty sure I haven’t because I’ve decided to read it again. Too much recently in the news drew me to the story, and friends have shared previews from the new filmed version that have made me want to check my memory.

So, I pull out the paperback, which dates back to 1986 and which I bought at Half-price books for $2 in the 1990s, and I begin.