applause Margaret Atwood welcome. Thank you. Very nice to have you here. Lovely to be here. So interested in this new book, congratulations on it. May i say nobody does dystopian like you do dystopian. laughs is that a compliment . Oh my god its the biggest compliment in the world. I mean the world that youve created in this book will come back to the handmaids tale at some point here soon reminiscent to my mind of the dystopia in that book. But i love the plot of this story, i love the characters and i think it goes in odd places that make it a very compelling read. It goes in very odd places. Very odd places. My read on this was it was 1984 crossed with the truman show with a little of masters of sex in there. laughter others may have their own equation. What was the genesis of this book and of this story . Once upon a time. Yes. Long long ago. [evan] were gonna go all the way back good okay yes. Once upon a time i worked with an editor called amy grace lloyd from the magazine world. [evan] yes. And she had been with new york review book, shed been with the new yorker and then she was with playboy. And it was when she was with playboy that i worked with her on some nonfiction [evan] yeah. Pieces. And then she moved over to a new venture which was an online thing called byliner. Yeah. Which was going to make a space for longform journalism and [evan] longform journalism, know it well. [margaret] and longer short stories. Yeah. And its since been swallowed up by other bigger fish but at that time thats what it was doing and she was doing it with them. So she talked me into doing a thing for byliner which was the first of a series of four that i ended up doing. Right. And by the time i had done the fourth one, my book publishers, books with covers and pages publishers. I remember those. Look theyre back. I can touch it there youre right. Theyre back. Right. They started becoming agitated in the way that they do. [evan] right. Theyd wring their hands. Why are you doing that and not this. Yes exactly. [evan] yes yes yes. Yes why are you doing that and not this, and cant you make that into this . Yes. So i thought that was quite a good idea, so i had to unpick some of the stuff that i had woven together. [evan] right. I had to make a beginning and since i had left our hero disguised as an Elvis Presley sex robot laughter in a packing case people think you may be kidding but youre not. Im not kidding no. About to be shipped off to las vegas. Yeah. That was the end of episode four. I had to get him out of that. Yes. I couldnt just leave him, one hopes. I couldnt just leave him there. So really parts of this had been as they say previously published, in a very different form. In a very different form right. In parts and of course i pulled it apart. Reordered it unpacked it repacked it. Added more subtracted. Right. And i asked amy to remain as the editor because she already knew [evan] knew the story. Stuff. [evan] right. So she was very helpful in that first go through as a work book. Right. So but for your publisher not haranguing you, but for them i should say haranguing you, [margaret] yes. You would not necessarily have gone this route. I mightve. I mightve harangued them. I mean you dont know [evan] right. [margaret] what you might have done. Well i guess the reason im asking is this book is being billed as your first stand alone novel in 15 years. Well they have to bill it as something. They do. laughter from audience they do they do indeed. But i guess the point is it didnt seem like you were in any particular mood or rush to go back to writing a novel and so im just wondering if there was a reason for that and they interceded and you went okay fine. Or were you planning on doing something anyway . Oh i never go okay fine. Yeah youre not in the okay fine business. No no no no no no. So had you stopped writing novels for an express purpose . No i hadnt stopped writing them. Yeah. I wrote oryx and crake, year of the flood that trilogy. And maddaddam each of those is a self contained novel. Right. They just happened to overlap time wise. With one another. So theres really been no interruption in in my output. Spewing forth of fictional words. Well before we come to your spew, lets talk about laughs lets talk about the plot of this book. So the main characters charmaine and stan begin the story living in their car. So what gave you the thought to set the book in this way with these characters in this situation . Well i started off with the idea so stan and charmaine are living in their car its really awful. They did have a house, they did have jobs. They ended up losing those and theyre in their car and its a very unpleasant place to be because theres also no social controls and theres people roaming around trying to get their car away from them. Right the world around them its very dangerous. [evan] has really kind of fallen down. Yeah no social structure. So then they see an ad on television. And the the ad on television says sign up for our project which promises full employment for everyone. [evan] right. You get sort of a digital tour of what you get and you get to live in a real house again, you get fluffy white towels. Now the inspiration from that was, do you remember those Leona Helmsley hotel ads with the towels . [evan] oh of course. Oh yes of course. Those were so appealing. Youre taking us back. It stuck with you. Yeah it did. [evan] it did okay. That spoke to me in those towels. laughter and they spoke to charmaine as well, and they also get a bed that they can actually sleep on rather than curling up in their car. Right. And they have a toilet that flushes, i mean this is a good thing. [evan] right. The only hitch the only hitch is theres a couple of hitches. Number one. The full employment scheme is that inside the town where you get this nice house, theres a prison. And you spend time in it month in month out. So one month youre a prisoner in the prison, and the other half is looking after you and taking care of the town, and then you switch over. And the other people are in the prison, and youre in the town. Not only that, you time share the house so that you have a couple whos in the prison when youre in the house and vice versa. [evan] vice versa. Youre never supposed to meet them of course we know what happens with that. Well anytime you set that up as a parameter its not going to work out. No. Right. It might in real life but it doesnt in this book. And this is a private prison corporation. Its a private for profit prison corporation, and we dont quite understand at the beginning what theyre making the profit out of. [evan] off of yes. But theyre extremely happy to see those sheets and towels and so would you be if you were living in your car. Some people say to me things like, well why did they sign in it . Come on you know why. [evan] this is the option [evan] that they had to take of course. Yes you would do it immediately. Of course. And the story takes all kinds of twists and turns and i mentioned masters of sex you were talking about tnd turns and i mentioned the woman who did playboy originally. There is sex in this book. Of various kinds. Of various kinds. Yes. laughter just gonna leave it out there. Yes. laughs [evan] right. Sales will now skyrocket actually. Yes well let me say that i put nothing into the book that isnt already or the paper im working on. So they have made Great Strides in sex robots. Yeah. Have you noticed that . No im sorry we dont write that. laughter well i have because i fool around on the internet. Have you heard of pepper the facial expression reading robot that theyve developed in japan and no i havent why dont you tell us about it . Pepper just got launched. And he is a greet i think its a he. But its hard to tell because he looks like a chessman with a big wheel thing underneath. [evan] okay. Hes not a sex bot. But he can shake hands with you. And apparently he can read your expression, he can say. Youre looking a little sad today. Or my we look quite happy. I dont know actually what he says. Right. They have them as greeters in banks and Enterprises Like that. Traditional greeter positions. They put a bunch of them on sale for private consumption. They were snapped up in about one minute. Apparently a lot of people want pepper in their home. What a strange world. It is a very strange world. Pepper came with instructions that said you werent supposed to use it for sex. I dont know how you could. And also who had to be told that . laughter exactly. Right . This is a strange world. It is a strange world and therefore whats in my book is no stranger than the strange world we live in. [evan] were living in. So you noodle around like a lot of people who write fiction, its fiction but its actually the Component Parts of things that are out in the world. And you spent a little bit of time noodling around on the internet and thinking about how we can bring the real world. [margaret] i dont want to want to be accused of having a twisted imagination. Right. And that its just me thinking these things up. How much of this though is commentary as opposed to you stitching together things that you think about or find out in the world . You are often thought of as a political novelist. That you have a political agenda or that the discussions of whether its the patriarchy that we all live under. Yeah but i dont think i have a political agenda. Youre not trying to make a point. I just describe whats there. Right. So if youre making a collage or a montage out of pieces of newspaper [evan] right. There is some way in which the order and the arrangement are a commentary. Right. But the material itself is found out there in the actual world. Right but surely its not a surprise that there are novelists who set out to write a fictional story that is itself though a commentary on the world in which we live. Theyre very deliberately trying they have an agenda theyre trying to make a point. Sure but you can set that out but the person who decides what the meaning of that story is is always going to be the reader. [evan] its going to be us. Its going to be the reader. Right. And even if you think youre not putting a moral into your book, the readers will put one in for you. Right so the people for instance ms. Atwood, the people who saw the handmaids tale as a feminist novel or a commentary on gender relations at that time i mean that book actually feels quite familiar going back to it now 30 years later, theres still a lot of the same issues that people might interpret in the book, but you didnt necessarily set out to write that book we may interpreted them. Im interested in totalitarianism. [evan] right. And theres no great surprise there because i was born in 1939. [evan] right. So thats the year world war ii began. So ive always been interested in reading about the lead up to that. [evan] yeah. How did hitler do it . How did stalin do it, how did mao do it . How did putin do it . How did these things get going . And the question i asked when i was setting up to write the handmaids tale was if there were going to be a totalitarianism in the united states, what kind of totalitarianism would it be . So its not just about women. Because you cannot change the position of women without also changing the position of men and vice versa. [evan] right. Theyre absolutely interconnected. [evan] yeah. I told it from the point of view of a woman because so often those stories are told from other points of view. Right. So George Orwell of course i read when i was 12 that book 1984 came out then. It was in the drugstore with quite an alluring cover. Is that right . Its a little less alluring now, maybe it seems less alluring by comparison. I think a lot of people read great literature because they saw alluring covers in the drugstore. laughter right. And then they thought wow and then they ended up reading faulkner and orwell and these great authors, but not on purpose. Right. laughter the other thing i took away from this book, honestly was it would be a great movie if somebody could figure out how to tell the story. That one. Yes this one. Yes. Yeah. Possibly. Are you comfortable when this has happened i mean the handmaids tale is probably the most famous example, im not sure when exactly as you or anybody else would have intended for it to the way that the story was told. It was quite an interesting process. Yeah. So Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay. Right. And the director was a german director who had directed the tin drum his name is volker schlondorff. [evan] yeah. And Natasha Richardson whom i had known as a child oddly enough, was the central character. And pinter had written a voiceover for that character and she played against the voiceover she recorded it and everything. [evan] right. And then the director took it out because he was in his minimalist phase. So her approach to the part was assuming that this voiceover [margaret] exactly. Would be in the movie. And then she thought that her performance was flat. Am i remembering that pinter at the time, he started on the film but also sort of stopped at one point . I dont remember that part. [evan] yeah. I remember i was the what shall we say. I was the only person who knew what they had for breakfast if it wasnt in the text. [evan] right. So i could give them you know inside tips like what kind of socks they never actually asked me about, they asked me other things and i was on the set for part of the shoot. But im remembering some kind of odd production process around it and then in the end some people, maybe Natasha Richardson, late Natasha Richardson, not very happy with the way it evolved. No she wasnt happy about the voiceover coming out. I liked it i remember thinking with robert duvall, faye dunaway. Yeah theyre all great theyre all great. Are you comfortable when whether its that book or if it were to be in this case, they come in and say we want to make this into a film do you feel like once they take it over for that purpose its no longer mine i dont feel its a different art form. Yeah and mostly invested in it. Yeah well the only thing you can do is have a conversation with them ahead of time. Right. And if you really think theyre make maidens in leather or whatever the heck they might have in mind you say no to the deal. [evan] right. And that did happen a couple of times with the handmaids tale. You just knew that they wanted to make a pretty schlocky thing and the answer was no. [evan] no. But pinter and schlondorff were tippity top. Well i cant imagine pinter doing leather clad schlock that seems yeah. No not him. Not a whole lot of worries on that, so i remark that the book was published 30 years ago the film was 25 years ago. Youve actually been at the business of writing books now its getting to be the edible woman was 60 laughter no no its great its impressive actually to think its a long time. [margaret] long time. And in fact your first book of poetry i think was as far back as maybe 61 . Yeah well that was something i actually hand set myself on a flatbed press. Right. Yeah seven poems we had a shortage of aides so we had to assemble each poem to do the next one. I mean its an understatement to say the world has changed in the years that youve been doing this. I wonder from your perspective as an author as a novelist as a poet as somebody who lives in this world, what that change has meant to you. Whether its your process or dealing with the outside world, publishers or all of us, hows the change affected the way you do things. Well number one. Yeah. I got older but dont tell. No you seem spry to me thank you. Spry is not a word youd use for a 20yearold. No but you said spry 20yearold. laughter spry basically im screwed no matter where this conversation goes. laughs i had a very nice compliment today in the airport i said to the guy, im so old i dont have to take my shoes off. And he said oh honey you dont look it. Isnt that nice . That is a good honestly that is a good thing. laughter ill reuse that one actually thats good. So the world has changed for you in a practical sense. The world has changed for everybody. Yeah. Pantyhose got invented in 1966. Thats true. Do you know that . Well you werent even born. I didnt think no thats exactly when i was born. I didnt think this was heading to pantyhose. laughter ive been dealing with publishers. Okay dealing with publishers. [evan] and the fact that in the old days you would write a book it was a fairly straight forward a to b process, you write a book they send you out on a tour, the consumption of books no when i started there were no tours. So all of the infrastructure that you see spread before you including the extremely lovely texas book festival in austin yeah. None of that existed. There werent any book festivals, there were no tours, they came along towards the end of the 60s. [evan] yeah. And it was actually canadians who invented them because all good things come from canada. No thats not true. We should do a half hour on that. Not true. A lot of bad things come from there too. And some of them come from there and stay there. Theyre there right now. Oh is that right . laughter im thinking sctb and tim hortons i like those both very much. Oh good. laughter were not in agreement on that, okay fine well put canada to the side. So in any case at some point it evolved to a place where you were doing tours and festivals. Yeah that happened in the 70s. Yeah. Be careful what you wish for and now people have to do them dont they. Yes they do. Yes they do. [evan] right. It was never really straight forward and publishers have always complained about the state of publishing and they continue to do so. Right do they do so more legitimately now since there are many other ways to get to consume. I mean you alluded to the its a multi platform. Well you alluded to the unusual thing that we have an actual book here that we can touch. Yeah well actually paper books have made a comeback. [evan] yeah. We saw ebooks go up to maybe 30 and then we saw them come back down to maybe 22. Theyve never taken off in europe. There seems to be a neurological reason for that. Its easy to read short things online on a screen. But its harder to read to long books, its hard to orient yourself in them and its hard to apparently the brain has more trouble with it. Even on the devices deliberately created for those purposes its not the same experience. Well theyre trying. [evan] theyre trying. Theyre trying theyre trying. I think each of those platforms is good for something. Right. And i think the e form is extremely good for searching. You want to buy something very good for that. Traveling. [evan] portability is unique. Portability all of that is good. So i use both. [evan] right. A lot of people use both. [evan] right. And i think kids are reading and writing a lot more than people know because theyre doing it online and theyre also writing on things like wattpad which is a stories sharing site which has got 40 million users a month. In 25 different languages. Right. And that gives young people in particular access to publishing. You know they can put their story up there and chapters and get an audience get feedback. Right well in that respect, publishers cant love the fact that theyre now being cut out of the process in a lot of ways. Its a very diy world i dont think of it as cutting it out. Yeah. The book is still the desired thing. Right. Thats what people really want. And from your perspective as an author youre agnostic about how people consume your stuff it doesnt matter to you if they consume it in hardcover or they consume it on a kindle or some other device . Does it matter to you . As long as they consume it . How could it matter i dont know them. [evan] yeah. laughter but your life as an author has really been more in this world over the last 1015 years. It seems to be in both worlds quite a bit. Right. Youre obviously very comfortable with the discussion of technology, you know about these apps and all that kind of stuff its not and i have quite a few twitter followers. Ill tweet you. I wish you would. laughter just gonna leave that right out there actually. Im always interested in people like you whose work i respect so much and whos been at this for so long and you know you do criticism as well as write your own stuff. Whose stuff do you like now . So if somebody comes up to you and says im interested in discovering somebody i might not know. Whose stuff do you like . Well okay first of all if theyre interested in discovering something they might not know, we would first have to have the discussion about what they like. [evan] right. cause reading is a very very individual thing, every person has their own taste so we would have to have that discussion. Well how about your taste, so if i asked you about your my tastes are extremely eclectic. Talk about that. Oh well which one of my eclectic tastes would you like to talk about . laughter you pick. Okay so popscience i read a lot of that. Yeah. cause i grew up among the scientists. Right. I have a library of books on the salem witchcraft trials. Thats a particular interest [margaret] very eclectic. [evan] of yours. Yes there is a book coming out about that this fall which ill get ahold of immediately as soon as it appears. The black death is another thing that just always interested me. Real upbeat stuff huh . laughter yes those things are pretty interesting because they have changed world history. But of course it tells me something that those two things interest you to come back to your writing because i guess you think of it as, ive heard you say speculative fiction. The nature of your books, not just the two weve mentioned extensively this book and the handmaids tale but others contain elements of a world that is clearly appealing to you as not just an author but also as a reader. As a reader and also just as a person who lives in the world. Right. So the causes of things. What changes pivotal moments in history, im pretty interested in all of that. [evan] yeah. Well its great because it clearly informs the work that you do and its always great to find people who are interested in a wide range of things. Very wide. Makes it better. In the couple minutes we have left, what are you doing next . What are you working on . Okay. What are you thinking about . Okay right now im working on a very interesting project. Its called the Hogarth Shakespeare project. And the Hogarth Press in Great Britain has asked a number of different writers of different genres to each pick a play of shakespeares and revisit it as a prose novel. [evan] as a prose novel. So jo nesbo is doing macbeath, hes a murder writer. [evan] okay. Suitable. Im doing the tempest. Why the tempest . Youll find out. Oh i guess i will laughter youre just leaving a lot hanging out there. I never tell in advance. No i understand. But obviously this interests you as a project. [margaret] fascinating. What an interesting project. Yeah very very fascinating project. The first one has just come out, its by Jeanette Winterson and its on the winters tale which is a pretty difficult play to do that with cause the plot is so weird. Shes done a very good job with it, and her book is called the gap of time. The gap of time. Yes. So when will your book be out . 2016. Thatll be the next thing from you that we see. [margaret] yes. Yes. Anything else you have cooking, another book of your own separate from this project . I mean obviously youre not in any kind of downshift mode. Im not in a downshift mode thats right, im not in a downshift mode. Well we have a graphic novel of the handmaids tale coming in 2017. [evan] is that right . Yes. But im not neither writing it cause i already did that or drawing it, we have a very good artist. But how wonderful to think about all the things that have been spawned by that. But we talked before we came out here, the film obviously but there was an opera . The opera was terrific. An opera based on the handmaids tale . Really liked the opera. And the opera was a danish composer. [evan] yeah. And he got hold of me in the lobby of the Hotel Dangleterre in copenhagen and he actually fell on his knees, it was quite romantic. laughter and he said i must do the handmaids tale, i have to do the handmaids tale, its the First Commission for the royal danish opera in 34 years. But if i cant do the handsmaids tale, i dont want to do any opera at all. How could you say no. Well i thought he was okay either hes crazy and it will be bad and it will just go away, or else hes not crazy and itll be good. So why not take a chance . So it was good it was terrific. It was actually great. So opera and now a graphic novel. Yes and i havent told you about the ballet either. laughter and theres a ballet . Yes. Wow. Well im fascinated by this, im gonna be sure to look for that graphic novel thatll be very interesting i think. You might not be able to avoid it. I may not. laughter were gonna stop here, congratulations on this. Thank you very much. [evan] its an honor to get to meet you. Oh thanks. [evan] it really is and a pleasure to talk to you. And you too. Great Margaret Atwood thank you so much. crowd applauds [voiceover] wed love to have you join us in the studio. Visit our website at klru. Org overheard to find invitations to interviews, q as with our audience and guests and an archive of past episodes. One of my ancestors involved in that on the hanging side. Quite an interesting person called halfhanged mary. They strung her up. But they hadnt invented the drop yet so she didnt die. And then they came together the next morning and there she was. Still alive. Dont you think thats a good ancestor to have . laughing [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation. Improving the quality of life within our community. Also by hillco partners. A texas Government Affairs consultancy. And by the Alice Kleberg reynolds foundation. light music