Alias Grace tells a tale based on a true, unsolved crime of late-19th Century Canada. The story begins with Grace Marks is serving a life sentence in the Kingston Penitentiary for her involvement in the vicious murder of her employer Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent for she was only sixteen in 1843, when the murders took place and also for being somewhat demented and foolish. Grace, while having spent time in an insane asylum in Toronto, has no memory of the murders.
Dr. Simon Jordan, a doctor who treats his patients with more modern methods of the early psychiatry, is hired by the group of people with spiritualists among them who believe in Grace’s innocence. One of those people is the Governor’s wife who lets Grace work in her house as a servant during daytime, only to be returned to jail in the evenings. We learn about the greatest bulk of Grace’s life during the sessions between Dr. Jordan and Grace, as Grace tells her side of the story her way, weaving in intricate motifs and amazing details. Dr. Jordan starts prying into Grace's life by bringing a different vegetable each day and sets it in front of Grace with the hope to unearth her memories.
Grace's story begins from her poverty-stricken childhood in Ireland and the emigration voyage that killed her mother, leaving her and other siblings to an irresponsible and abusive father, through her short and successful life as a servant, to the dreadful events of autumn 1843. She has suffered many losses, including the death of her mother to ship fever, and that of her best friend Mary Whitney, who was also a servant. Mary Whitney had died from an illegally performed abortion.
After a hypnosis session done by another so-called Dr. Du Pont, in reality Jeremiah --a peddler who knew Grace from earlier days, Dr. Simon Jordan abandons the project, for it surfaces as if the spirit of Mary Whitney has possessed Grace.
The novel ends thirty years later when Grace is forty-six and is finally pardoned to begin a new life.

those who like to read stories of psychological intrigue and suspense. This novel presents, with a tender and surprising lyricism and with insight into the harshness of poverty, the differences between the classes, violence, and sexual attraction.

The way story was told through varying dynamics between the characters but particularly between Grace and Dr. Jordan. I also loved the author’s use of metaphors such as blood, flowers, and especially the use of fabrics, from Grace’s mother’s shroud to the patterns of quilts, to Nancy’s clothing Grace took as she ran away with MacDermott, the real killer who was hanged.

Margaret Atwood, has crafted a wonderful and intricate novel with Alias Grace. Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer, born in 1939 in Ottawa. After doing her master's in Radcliffe College, she became a treasure not only to Canada but to the entire world as a writer and teacher. She has received many awards and honors, such as The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence in the U.K., the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature in the U.S., Le Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and she was the first winner of the London Literary Prize. She has honorary degrees from universities across Canada, and one from Oxford University in England. Among her many works are: The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Good Bones and Simple Murders, Morning in the Burned House (poetry).

It is an incredible story based on a true murder, yet told with unbelievable mastery, using many angles of looking at the events and concepts of psychoanalysis that emerged before Freud, involving memory, dreams, and counter-transference.

This story is the work of a very vivid imagination combined with a piercing insight into human nature. The characters are drawn tenderly and hauntingly, so much so that they stay with the reader after the last page. As always, but especially in this book, Margaret Atwood’s narrative surpasses time and place and amazes the reader yet one more time.

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Created Nov 16, 2003 at 6:10pm • Submit your own review...