Hag-Seed

by Margaret Atwood Narrated by R.H. Thomson

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES*BESTSELLER ¿ The beloved author of*The Handmaid's Tale*reimagines Shakespeare's final, great play,*The Tempest,*in a gripping and emotionally rich novel of passion and revenge.
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“A marvel of gorgeous yet economical prose, in the service of a story that's utterly heartbreaking yet pierced by humor, with a plot that retains considerable subtlety even as the original's back story falls neatly into place.”-The New York Times Book Review
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Felix is at the top of his game as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. Now he's staging aTempest*like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, but it will also 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 also brewing revenge, which, after twelve years, arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison.
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Margaret Atwood's novel take on Shakespeare's play of enchantment, retribution, and second chances leads us on an interactive, illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own.
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Praise for*Hag-Seed*
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“What makes the book thrilling, and hugely pleasurable, is how closely Atwood hews to Shakespeare even as she casts her own potent charms, rap-composition included. . . . Part Shakespeare, part Atwood,*Hag-Seed*is a most delicate monster-and that's `delicate' in the 17th-century sense. It's delightful.”-Boston Globe
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“Atwood has designed an ingenious doubling of the plot of*The Tempest: Felix, the usurped director, finds himself cast by circumstances as a real-life version of Prospero, the usurped Duke. If you know the play well, these echoes grow stronger when Felix decides to exact his revenge by conjuring up a new version of*The Tempest*designed to overwhelm his enemies.”-Washington Post*
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“A funny and heartwarming tale of revenge and redemption . . .*Hag-Seed*is a remarkable contribution to the canon.”-Bustle

Editorial Reviews

OCTOBER 2016 - AudioFile

Narrator R.H. Thomson would have made a fine Prospero in Shakespeare’s TEMPEST: His voice has the ideal blend of toughness and tenderness to portray the vengeful but ultimately forgiving Duke of Milan. In Atwood’s contemporary retelling of the Bard’s final play, the veteran Canadian actor (but relative newcomer to audiobooks) is marvelous as all of the characters. Center stage is Felix, the exiled artistic director of a theater festival, who is exiled to teach drama at a prison. Felix has the inmates stage a production of THE TEMPEST, and Thomson brings the members of the cast to life with subtle vocal changes that capture all the novel’s humor. He even salvages some awkward dialogue that would have fallen flat in the hands of a lesser narrator. D.B. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly - Audio

12/05/2016
The fourth book in the Hogarth series of contemporary novels based on Shakespeare’s plays is a delightfully complex and inventive modern recreation of The Tempest, in which the character of Prospero is a prominent theater festival director named Felix. Voice actor Thomson adds life to the character of Felix and the plots and fantasies of his fertile imagination. Felix is pushed out of his job by a scheming underling and goes off the grid, teaching literacy and theater to prisoners and grieving a lost daughter. Over time, Felix transforms into the clever and manipulative teacher who organizes a class of convicts to analyze and perform Shakespeare’s Tempest as a means of executing his vengeance. Thomson handles the wild but benevolent humor of Shakespeare’s Tempest and Atwood’s equally well. A Hogarth hardcover. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 08/22/2016
In The Tempest, Prospero is not just exiled king, magician, and father, he’s an impresario staging multiple shows: the storm that strands his enemies on the island; his pretended disdain for Ferdinand, whom he intends for his daughter, Miranda; the play within the play; and, some critics argue, the play itself. In this, the fourth Hogarth Shakespeare adaptation, Atwood underscores these elements by making her Prospero a prominent theater festival director. After being done out of his job by a scheming underling, Felix goes off-grid, teaching literacy and theater to prisoners and grieving a lost daughter. When he learns that the man who took his job, now a political bigwig, will attend the next production, he sees his chance: in this Tempest, it won’t just be Prospero who gets revenge. Former diva Felix is a sly and inventive director and teacher who listens to his cast’s input, and his efforts to shape the play and his plot make for compelling reading. If, at the end, things tie up a little too neatly, the same might be said of the original, and Atwood’s canny remix offers multiple pleasures: seeing the inmates’ takes on their characters, watching Felix make use of the limited resources the prison affords (legal and less so), and marveling at the ways she changes, updates, and parallels the play’s magic, grief, vengeance, and showmanship. 125,000-copy announced first printing. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

"A marvel of gorgeous yet economical prose, in the service of a story that's utterly heartbreaking yet pierced by humor, with a plot that retains considerable subtlety even as the original's back story falls neatly into place."—New York Times Book Review

“What makes the book thrilling, and hugely pleasurable, is how closely Atwood hews to Shakespeare even as she casts her own potent charms, rap-composition included… Part Shakespeare, part Atwood, “Hag-Seed” is a most delicate monster — and that’s “delicate” in the 17th-century sense. It’s delightful.”—The Boston Globe

“Atwood has designed an ingenious doubling of the plot of “The Tempest”: Felix, the usurped director, finds himself cast by circumstances as a real-life version of Prospero, the usurped Duke. If you know the play well, these echoes grow stronger when Felix decides to exact his revenge by conjuring up a new version of “The Tempest” designed to overwhelm his enemies.”—The Washington Post
 
“A funny and heartwarming tale of revenge and redemption, this latest release in the Hogarth Shakespeare project, whose aim it is to retell Shakespeare's most beloved works through the works of bestselling authors like Anne Tyler and Gillian Flynn, Hag-Seed is a remarkable contribution to the canon.”—Bustle

“Atwood’s canny remix offers multiple pleasures…[marvel] at the ways she changes, updates, and parallels the play’s magic, grief, vengeance, and showmanship.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
 “…Inventive, heartfelt, and swiftly rendered.” –Library Journal, starred review

"Atwood brilliantly pulls off the caper in a short novel that should be assigned to high school students as a hilarious riff on one of Shakespeare's more mystifying plays. It's much more than a retelling; it's an ingenious analysis and critique rolled into one."—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Margaret Atwood's modern retelling is an entertaining romp of revenge, redemption."—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"A triumph [...] The book illuminates the breadth and depth of the whole play. The troupe's workshops on it fizz with perception as Atwood transmits the pleasurable buzz of exploring a literary masterpiece. There won't be a more glowing tribute to Shakespeare in his 400th anniversary year."–Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

"The novel shines a thrilling new light on The Tempest's themes of revenge and forgiveness [...] as well as making a strong case for art's ability to "set you free" by helping you understand yourself."–Helen Brown, Sunday Telegraph

"Surpassingly brilliant [...] without question the cleverest "neo-Shakespearean novel" I have ever read [...] the learning and the critical analysis are worn exceptionally lightly, always subordinated to wit, invention, characterisation and slick twists of plot [...] wonderfully ingenious."–Jonathan Bate, The Times

“…you don't need to be a Shakespeare geek like me to enjoy Hag-Seed; it's a good story, and will introduce you to the play gently, with Felix himself as your guide.”–NPR Books

“Hag-Seed is a treat. It’s a beautifully constructed adaptation, one that stands on its own but is even richer when read against its source — and can, in turn, enrich its source material. It’s playful and thoughtful, and it singlehandedly makes a good argument for the value of adapting Shakespeare.”–Vox

“Atwood has tremendous fun with Hag-Seed. Those who know the play will especially enjoy her artful treatment of its more poignant storylines. But even someone unfamiliar with Shakespeare will be entertained by this compelling tale of enchantment and second chances, and the rough magic it so delightfully embodies.”-Bookpage

“Readers looking for Atwood’s wit and mastery of language will find it at work here… Atwood more than does justice to the Bard.”-Chicago Review of Books

“One needn’t be a Shakespeare fan in order to love this retelling of The Tempest…This book is funny and wonderful. Highly recommended for Shakespeare lovers and those seeking revenge.”-Seattle Book Review

Library Journal

★ 09/01/2016
Among the offerings so far in the "Hogarth Shakespeare" series, modern retellings of the plays, Atwood's is distinctive for integrating a juicily conceived rehearsal and performance of the work in question, The Tempest. Persuasively detailing the theater world as she parallels the play's events, the author opens with Felix Phillips, revered artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival, losing his post to the machinations of underling Tony. He retreats to a rundown shack, his only company thoughts of his dead daughter, Miranda, which are so substantial she can seem real to him (and us). Nine years later, he answers an ad to teach Literacy Through Literature at the Fletcher County Correctional Institute and begins staging Shakespeare there. The rough-and-tumble inmates favor bloody power struggles like Macbeth, but when Felix learns that loathsome Tony will be visiting with some politician associates, he plans a Tempest that will act as trap and revenge. His actors need some convincing (though everyone wants to play Caliban, the titular hag-seed), but they give a magical performance. VERDICT The play's final rendering might be a bit over the top, but the narrative as a whole is so inventive, heartfelt, and swiftly rendered as to expunge any doubts. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 4/18/16; "Editors' Fall Picks," p. 28.]—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

2016-08-07
Despite its title, this novelization of The Tempest explores the perspective not of Caliban, the enslaved witch’s son, but of Prospero, his magician master.The latest in The Hogarth Press’ series of Shakespeare retellings is Atwood's (The Heart Goes Last, 2015, etc.) take on tyranny, betrayal, and art. In dystopias such as The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), the feminist master of literary science fiction explored the fate of the oppressed, but here she focuses instead on the power of an artist to reimagine his fate. Her Prospero, the actor/impresario Felix Phillips, has spent too many years ignoring office politics so he can concentrate on “the things that really mattered, such as his perceptive script notes and his cutting-edge lighting schemes and the exact timing of the showers of glitter confetti of which he has made such genius use.” As a result, he’s been ousted as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival by his scheming second-in-command, Tony Price (Antonio), and the Chair of the Board, Lonnie Gordon (Gonzalo). Fleeing the scene of his betrayal, Felix changes his name to Mr. Duke and finds refuge in the Literacy Through Literature program at the Fletcher County Correctional Institute, a job he agrees to take only if he’s allowed to direct the inmates in Shakespeare plays. There he plots revenge, which unfolds when Tony, now Minister of Heritage in the Canadian government, along with Lonnie and assorted other dignitaries, makes a photo-op visit to see Felix’s production of—what else?—The Tempest. Once Felix has his enemies isolated in his dominion, he directs his sprites—the inmate actors—to bewitch, drug, and humiliate them, exposing their treachery. The plot’s self-referential layers recall Prospero’s famous “air, thin air” speech about actors. But despite this clever construction and a few genuinely moving moments involving Felix’s dead daughter, Miranda, who died of meningitis as a toddler and whose spirit hovers through the story Ariel-fashion, the bulk of the novel can feel like spending some 300 pages in a high school English class. The inmate-actors seem more like puppets than people; oddly, the most forgettable is the eponymous Caliban-counterpart. Deliberate and carefully built, this novel rarely pulls off true theater’s magic of transforming glitter confetti into fairy dust.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171906351
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	10/11/2016
Series:	Hogarth Shakespeare Series
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

1. SEASHORE Monday, January 7, 2013.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Hag-Seed"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Margaret Atwood.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Canada.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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