Felix Philips, wrapped up in his own creative agenda and dealing with his bereavements, is cast adrift from his position in an arts festival just before he brings Shakespeare’s Tempest to the stage. He finds outlet for his talent working with prisoners on an arts and literacy programme and some time later has the opportunity to revenge himself against the conniving agents of his downfall.
We are already aware because of the Hogarth Shakespeare project that this is Margaret Atwood’s retelling of the Tempest - from Felix as Prospero through so many other of the Dramatis Personae - but this is beyond Atwood being merely tricksy: this is poignant, funny, lively, thoughtful, with a cast the reader is called on to care about. What revenge and freedom look like for Felix and his cast of prisoners (and his own imagined ghost-daughter, Miranda) needs to be read through, laughed with and cried with. That Felix and the prisoners (and Atwood-Prospera herself) produce a good, complex exposition of the original Tempest just adds to the richness of this read.