Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold - Hardcover

Atwood, Margaret

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345809262 ISBN 13: 9780345809261

Publisher: Knopf Canada, 2016

Synopsis

Our greatest literary innovator and beloved novelist has reimagined Shakespeare's final, great play of magic and illusion. Entertaining, gripping, emotionally rich and wise, Hag-Seed is an homage to a master, positioned for the fall celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death.

"It's got a thunderstorm in it. And revenge. Definitely revenge."

Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds.

Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And brewing revenge.

After twelve years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison. Here, Felix and his motley crew of inmate actors will put on his Tempest, and snare the traitors who destroyed him. But will it remake Felix as his enemies fall?

Margaret Atwood's novel take on Shakespeare's play of enchantment, revenge and second chances leads us on an illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own.

About this title

About the Author

MARGARET ATWOOD, whose work has been published in thirty-five countries, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaid's Tale, her novels include Cat's Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood; and her most recent, MaddAddam. She is the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Innovator's Award, and lives in Toronto with the writer Graeme Gibson.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1. SEASHORE
Monday, January 7, 2013.

Felix brushes his teeth. Then he brushes his other teeth, the false ones, and slides them into his mouth. Despite the layer of pink adhesive he’s applied, they don’t fit very well; perhaps his mouth is shrinking. He smiles: the illusion of a smile. Pretense, fakery, but who’s to know?

Once he would have called his dentist and made an appointment, and the luxurious faux-leather chair would have been his, the concerned face smelling of mint mouthwash, the skilled hands wielding gleaming instruments. Ah yes, I see the problem. No worries, we’ll get that fixed for you. Like taking his car in for a tuneup. He might even have been graced with music on the earphones and a semiknockout pill.

But he can’t afford such professional adjustments now. His dental care is low-rent, so he’s at the mercy of his unreliable teeth. Too bad, because that’s all he needs for his upcoming finale: a denture meltdown. Our revelth now have ended. Theeth our actorth . . . Should that happen, his humiliation would be total; at the thought of it even his lungs blush. If the words are not perfect, the pitch exact, the modulation delicately adjusted, the spell fails. People start o shift in their seats, and cough, and go home at intermission. It’s like death.

“Mi-my-mo-moo,” he tells the toothpaste-speckled mirror over the kitchen sink. He lowers his eyebrows, juts out his chin. Then he grins: the grin of a cornered chimpanzee, part anger, part threat, part dejection.

How he has fallen. How deflated. How reduced. Cobbling together this bare existence, living in a hovel, ignored in a forgotten backwater; whereas Tony, that selfpromoting, posturing little shit, gallivants about with the grandees, and swills champagne, and gobbles caviar and larks’ tongues and suckling pigs, and attends galas, and basks in the adoration of his entourage, his flunkies, his toadies . . .

Once the toadies of Felix.

It rankles. It festers. It brews vengefulness. If only . . .

Enough. Shoulders straight, he orders his gray reflection. Suck it up. He knows without looking that he’s developing a paunch. Maybe he should get a truss.

Never mind! Reef in the stomach! There’s work to be done, there are plots to be plotted, there are scams to be scammed, there are villains to be misled! Tip of the tongue, top of the teeth. Testing the tempestuous teapot. She sells seashells by the seashore.

There. Not a syllable fluffed. He can still do it. He’ll pull it off, despite all obstacles. Charm the pants off them at first, not that he’d relish the resulting sight. Wow them with wonder, as he says to his actors. Let’s make magic! And let’s shove it down the throat of that devious, twisted bastard, Tony.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Canada
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345809262
• ISBN 13: 9780345809261
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320