Alternate cover edition can be found here . The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire – neither Offreds nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and exe Alternate cover edition can be found here . The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire – neither Offreds nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first-century America gives full rein to Margaret Atwoods devastating irony, wit and astute perception.