Margaret Atwood Won’t Leave Gilead Just Yet

The series finale of The Handmaid’s Tale is on the horizon, but Margaret Atwood isn’t feeling particularly sentimental. The adaptation of her watershed novel has been on the air for six seasons now, and she knows there’s only so long an audience can suspend disbelief. “You start to think, ‘Why is the regime letting June stay alive so long?’” Atwood tells Bustle. “With TV serials, there are cliffhangers and narrow escapes because you have to keep the heroine alive. But in histories of dictatorships, they hunt people down and kill them.”

One thing that will always triumph over the regime? A sequel. The Testaments, Atwood’s 2019 follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale, is currently being adapted for Hulu. “You’ll see some of the same people coming back,” says Atwood, who has plans to both visit the set and film a cameo. Among those coming back? Actor Ann Dowd. “I’d be talking to the [Handmaid’s] showrunner on the phone, saying things like, ‘You cannot kill Aunt Lydia!’ He’d say, ‘I wasn’t going to!’ and I’d say, ‘You took a knife at her and threw her over the banister!’”

Then there’s something entirely new: Book of Lives, her first memoir, arriving later this year. Having published more than 50 books — in genres ranging from poetry collections to graphic novels — you’d think this would all be old hat to Atwood. But memoir-writing demanded something new from her entirely. “In real life, you attempt to be faithful to the facts. That means doing a bit of research. Where were you when, what happened when. For a 85-year [lifespan], that wasn’t always easy.”

Especially when there’s just so many accolades and triumphs — be it her two Booker prizes, three Emmy nominations, or many New York Times bestselling books she’s published in genres ranging from poetry to speculative fiction — to parse through. “I’m very old,” she says, shrugging off her prolific output. “It piles up.”

Below, Atwood reflects on caffeine addiction, Hilary Mantel, and The Good Place.

On the historic period she can’t stop reading about:

I’m reading a lot about the French Revolution. If you’re at all interested in the subject, read Hilary Mantel’s novel A Place of Greater Safety. Or if you want to read an hour-by-hour [account] of how at the beginning of a 24-hour period, Robespierre had a head, and at the end of it he didn’t, it’s called The Fall of Robespierre.

On giving up caffeine:

I used to be an absolute coffee addict, but I can’t do that anymore because of medication. It used to be like six cups a day, and I miss it. Now, [I drink] electrolytes and, for snacks, have a half an avocado.

On beating writer’s block:

If the whole novel isn’t working, I either throw it out, put it in a drawer, change the voice, or the tense. If it’s in third person, I change to first. If it’s too much in the past, I change more of it to the present.

On the TV shows she unwinds with:

I celebrate a good day of writing by watching fairly light, entertaining television. Sometimes it’s mystery, sometimes it’s The Good Place or Only Murders in the Building. On planes I might descend as far as watching Captain Underpants.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.