Review: ‘Hag-Seed’

Margaret Atwood's new novel, 'Hag-Seed,” is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, which features contemporary authors reimagining the Bard's plays. The project is ongoing with the last announced entry, Gillian Flynn's ('Gone Girl”) take on 'Hamlet,” scheduled for publication in 2021.

Atwood's entry is a retelling of 'The Tempest,” and in a narrative move that will be familiar to fans of the television series 'Slings and Arrows,” she follows the plot of the play while also having the central characters put on the play.

After being forced out of the Shakespeare festival he has led for many years, Felix Phillips hides away for better than a decade before reemerging to direct Shakespeare plays in a medium security prison. He bides his time as he plots revenge on those who destroyed his career. When his opportunity arises, he decides a production of 'The Tempest” will be the instrument of his vengeance.

In this novel, Atwood - a prolific author who is still probably best known for her 1985 novel 'The Handmaid's Tale” - employs the breezy prose style that drove her last book, 'The Heart Goes Last.” That book was also built around confinement, and in both novels Atwood's tone belies the darkness of her tale.

Readers of Jane Smiley's 'A Thousand Acres” (a retelling of 'King Lear”) and David Wroblewski's 'The Story of Edgar Sawtelle” (a retelling of 'Hamlet”) - both of which predate the Hogarth series - will find Atwood's narrative strategy less subtle, but no less effective or satisfying. 'Hag-Seed” is a worthy exploration of its source material.