Alias Grace

Grace Marks is an actual historical figure who was convicted of murder in Toronto in 1843. Originally given the death sentence just like her co-defendant James McDermott, the judge acquiesces to local sentiment and reduces the sentence to life in prison. In her novel, Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood has scoured the historical documents and done what all truly great historical fiction writers (Hilary Mantel comes immediately to mind) do: filled in the gaps in the history of the story with a compelling narrative while, at the same time, staying true to the history that is already documented. The result had me furiously turning pages well into the night.

Much of the book is told by Grace herself with a great deal of the narrative taking place show more between herself and Dr. Simon Jordan who, in 1859, is working on behalf of a group that believes that she is innocent and should be set free. He is trying to use prevailing mental health methods to get Grace to remember her part during the murders of her former employer, Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper/mistress Nancy Montgomery, which she seems to have blocked out of her memory.

Or has she? From page one up until the last page I suspected we were dealing with an unreliable narrator. And even now, after having finished the book I still can��t decide if Grace was truthful or not. This character, so finely crafted by a master crafter, had me guessing the whole time. And speaking of characterizations, it’s hard to beat this description of Dora, a housemaid:

"Dora is stout and pudding-faced, with a small downturned mouth like that of a disappointed baby. Her large black eyebrows meet over her nose, giving her a permanent scowl that expresses a sense of disapproving outrage. It’s obvious that she detests being a maid-of-all-work; he wonders if there is anything else she might prefer. He has tried imagining her as a prostitute…but he can’t picture any man actually paying for her services…Dora is a hefty creature, and could snap a man’s spine in two with her thighs, which Simon envisions as greyish, like boiled sausages, and stubbled like a singed turkey; and enormous, each one as large as a piglet.” (Page 57)

Atwood brilliantly constructs the narrative from numerous perspectives and an assortment of formats including letters, newspaper articles, legal records, poetry, third person accounts, first person accounts and Grace’s own flashbacks. In so doing, I somehow found myself questioning everything. What is the truth? Can we ever be absolutely sure?

If you like your endings tied up in a neat bow with all the loose ends accounted for, you will be disappointed. If you like a book that draws you in and leaves you questioning, well, everything, Atwood delivers in spades. I have decided that I need to reread some of her earlier books that I’m not sure I understood completely when I read them eons ago. And I will definitely reread Alias Grace because it’s the kind of book that almost demands a reread. show less

Alias Grace is a fictionalization of an actual crime that occurred in Canada in the 1840’s. Grace Marks has been imprisoned as an accomplice for a murder of her employer that happened when she was just 15 years old. James McDermott was convicted of the murder and was hung, while Grace was convicted and sentenced to death but was granted a stay of execution and received life in prison instead.

Atwood does a great job of creating her own fictional details around the actual facts of the crime. She creates a fictional Doctor, Dr Jordan, who interviews Grace 16 years after the crime while attempting to research criminal minds relating to insanity. Dr Jordan has been hired by a religious group that is confident that Grace is innocent of the show more crime that she has been imprisoned for. He becomes a secondary narrator and struggles with his own demons and sexual nature in a restrictive and proper society.

Grace claims to have no memory of the murders, but has clear memories leading up to and after the event. Many people believe that Grace is a victim of circumstances, a poor motherless child under the influence of an unsavoury character, while others believe Grace is a calculating murderess. Dr Jordan attempts to find the truth through interviews with Grace and others involved in the investigation.

I loved that Atwood didn’t try to solve the crime, and instead wrote a complicated patchwork using history and her amazing imagination. I was impressed that the ending was not what I expected! show less

In 1843, Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery were brutally murdered at their home in Kingston, Ontario. Two servants, James McDermott and Grace Marks, were tried and convicted. McDermott was sentenced to death, but Grace's sentence was commuted to life in prison. In Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood uses scant historical evidence, and the character of young Dr. Simon Jordan, to tell Grace's story.

Dr. Jordan is somewhat of a specialist in mental illness, and in 1859 is granted permission to conduct a series of interviews with Grace at the penitentiary. He hopes to learn her side of the story, not just what her attorney told her to say at trial. But Grace has blocked all memories associated with the murders, and uncovering the show more truth is a long process requiring much patience. Jordan visits Grace nearly every day, and she recounts her life story from early childhood in Ireland all the way up to the murders.

Very early on, I fell into reading Alias Grace as I would any murder mystery. I forgot it was historical fiction, and began reading between the lines, searching for red herrings and expecting surprise plot twists. But the fascinating aspects of this tale are actually due to its basis in historical fact. In the 1840s, the field of mental illness was going through tremendous change, with many new theories and treatment methods. Many psychological conditions were simply not well understood. And Grace herself was a victim of society's prevailing attitudes toward women. Because she was attractive, some thought she must be the mastermind behind the murders. Others claimed her youth made her an unwilling victim. Margaret Atwood brings out another side of Grace, that of a strong independent woman whose psychological reaction to trauma fundamentally changed the course of her life. show less

Rather in the vein of [In Cold Blood] but with more obviously fictitious material, as the true crimes that Atwood writes of took place all the way back in 1843. [Alias Grace] tells the story of Grace Marks, a 16-year-old servant girl in Canada who was accused of the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housemaid, Nancy Montgomery. Her alleged accomplice, James McDermott, was hanged for the crimes but Grace's death sentence was commuted to imprisonment, and she spent close to 30 years in an asylum and a penitentiary.

Atwood's version of the story is told partly in the voice of Grace herself and partly through third-person narrative of the experiences of Dr Simon Jordan, a young doctor in the up-and-coming field of show more psychoanalysis who comes to interview Grace during her imprisonment. Dr Jordan commences with the grand goal of plumbing Grace's subconscious and restoring her 'lost' memories from the day of the murders, thus settling once and for all the question of her guilt or innocence. There are two main plot lines running throughout the novel. The first is Grace's narrative, including both her day-to-day life as a prisoner and her account of her life from her childhood in Northern Ireland through the time of the murders. The second is the story of Dr Jordan, who moves gradually from brash confidence in himself, his abilities, and the worthiness of his aims, to self-doubt and explosive confrontations with a few of his own repressed demons.

Not only are the characters and plot compelling, there's quite a lot of incidental history in here as well (which is great for lazy people like me who enjoy picking up facts painlessly). Grace Marks' life took place against the backdrop of the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837, and the ongoing debate over her guilt or innocence tended to draw in issues of oligarchy versus democracy, established church versus Protestant branches, and so on. This becomes clear in the surrounding cast of characters in the novel, who all interpret Grace according to their own biases.

Margaret Atwood was first presented to me as a feminist author, so I tend to think of her first in those terms (although it's unfairly limiting). [Alias Grace] certainly has a lot of potent observations on the roles and relationships of men and women in the nineteenth century (but at no point does it feel like 'feminist politics' get the better of the story). The tension between upper- and working-class also drives the story forward, as does the fear of people (immigrants, migrant workers, the insane) generally perceived as 'outsiders.' There's this sense in which people are struggling so hard to relate to each other and failing wretchedly at it because of all the masks that they wear to deceive each other and themselves.

A big, sexy, complicated book, which I liked very much. show less

Grace Marks was a real person, an Irish immigrant to Canada in the first half of the 19th century. By the time she was 16, she had been tried and convicted of the murder of her employer and his housekeeper. Public opinion was mixed, and there were enough influential people who believed that Grace was wrongly convicted to keep her from being hanged. Margaret Atwood developed Grace's story into a historical novel that raises as many questions as it answers. Atwood probes the lines between fantasy and reality, memory and illusion, truth and falsehood, sanity and insanity. There isn't much black and white here – only shades of (often very dark) gray. Grace doesn't reveal her secrets easily, and many readers will find themselves reading show more long past the point they intended to stop in the hope that Grace will reward them with some new detail that she's been keeping to herself. show less

Margaret Atwood’s diversity is unbelievably stunning. Her ability to shift between oeuvres and genres while still producing sharp, socially conscious narratives and maintaining a distinctive voice may be wholly unmatched in literature. How she hasn’t yet been recognized for a Pulitzer or Nobel is baffling.

[Alias Grace] is further evidence of Atwood’s diversity. Historical fiction – many years before the genre separated itself from the pack – it takes up the true story of Grace Marks, who was convicted of murdering her employer and another house maid in nineteenth century Canada. Marks survived years in a brutal prison facility for women and a lunatic asylum before having receiving a pardon. Atwood uses the basic facts of the show more murder and Grace’s incarceration to outline the book, detailing the account through Grace’s own voice and interviews with a fictionalized alienist.

Save Humbert Humbert, there is probably no better unreliable narrator ever created than Grace Marks. Is she insane – a victim of a multiple personality disorder? Is she an innocent victim – of nineteenth century sensibilities or of a manipulative murderer? Or is she a truly evil person, who will say or do anything to get her way? Even with her own voice making up half of the narrative, you will be left to your own judgement in the end. There is no answer provided, no true resolution, in the end. And, rather than aggravating, the story’s ambiguous nature keeps you coming back for more. It’s a perfect murder mystery, even though it starts a decade after the killers were convicted.

The book also firmly sets Atwood’s presence as a feminist voice. Whatever you decide about Grace’s culpability, her journey is a shaming account of the violence women suffer. And it’s not a function of backwards nineteenth century thinking – s there’s no acquittal in hindsight justification that things are different now. Sadly, Grace’s story resonates in any century.

Bottom Line: Atwood’s mastery on display in a perfect murder mystery told by a perfectly unreliable narrator.
5 bones!!!!! show less

Well that may just be the most satisfying book with an unsatisfying ending that I've ever read. This is a brilliant tale that weaves a historical subject with a character study. Atwood delves into the mind of Grace Marks, an 18th century woman convicted of colluding with a fellow servant to kill her employer and the housekeeper he was sleeping with. The book focuses on Grace's time in jail being interviewed by an aspiring doctor to the insane, Simon Jordan. The entire book is a question - just how involved was Grace in the murders? The answers range from her being a young, unwitting bystander who didn't stop the murders out of fear to her being a conniving, manipulative, jealous woman who orchestrated the whole affair. In the middle is show more the possibility of insanity, multiple personalities, etc. In addition to the questions about Grace, we get a glimpse into the mind of Dr. Jordan, who comes off as not-so-sane himself, even in comparison to Grace. Ultimately, there are few answers in this book, but even though that in itself is unsatisfying, the book is so absorbing and interesting that it is satisfying even without a neatly wrapped up ending. This may be my favorite Atwood novel so far. show less