Will I love Alias Grace?

It’s rare that I find a book that plunges me so deeply into the psychology of a character.

Grace is the protagonist of Alias Grace. She’s cunning. She’s bold. She’s possibly a murderess. The most fascinating aspect of Grace to me is that she is based on a real-life character from Canada in the mid-1800s.

Throughout the whole book, I kept wondering about her—not just the fictional character, but the real one too—was this what she was really thinking? Was this how she really behaved?

I found her voice in the novel to be absolutely undeniable. You want to… show more.

I’ve loved Margaret Atwood for so long! The Edible Woman came first, then The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, her poems, her writing on writing–yet this is another book that I came to as a result of a televised drama.

In mid-19th-century Canada, two servants were charged with murdering a man and his housekeeper. I was hooked by Atwood’s many-layered depiction of the female villain, Grace Marks. She approaches the story through a fictional doctor doing research about criminals who struggles to match up the bloody-handed murderer with the subservient servant. 

For me, this is another masterful interweaving of historical fact and wildly creative imagination. It’s a prime example of in-depth research wielded to tangibly ground the reader in the book’s world; you learn about everything from 19th-century psychological theory and forensics to quilt-making and housecleaning techniques.

Part of what I really love about the novel, though, is that unlike in The Handmaid’s Tale, here Atwood deliberately blurs the lines between “good” and “evil” and “victim” and “villain.” Grace isn’t entirely likable, and she’s pretty much entirely unreliable. So, embodying her perspective as a reader is a continual guessing game… show more.

This fictionalized account of convict Grace Marks from the 1840s is a heady, thrilling, and intimate portrait of a “bad” woman who remains one of the most unforgettable female characters I have encountered in fiction. 

I found it hard not to be drawn into the complexity of Marks’ sensuous, cruel, yet relatable ambitions to escape the hand that fate had dealt her. Alias Grace, for me, is Atwood at her most exquisite and ranks in my top two favorites of the author’s works.

Grace Marks was a real Irish-Canadian maid who, in 1840s Ontario, was convicted of murdering her employer. Did she do it? If so, why?

Margaret Atwood uses the lens of interviews with a (fictional) doctor to unpeel Grace’s many layers (or is she only adding lies?). Dreamy, Gothic, and tragic; I loved it. I also loved the miniseries adaptation from Sarah Polley. 

Margaret Atwood has got to be my favorite author, so it’s always a joy to read anything by her.

However, I read this book primarily as research (I’m currently working towards a PhD, which looks at biographical novels and the ways authors blend fact and fiction). This novel re-imagines the life of an 18th-century alleged murderess.

What’s fascinating for me is seeing the interplay between historical evidence and the writer’s imagination. Atwood is a wonderful storyteller, and this is a masterclass in how to write compelling bio-fiction. Even if you don’t share my obsession with biographical novels, you’ll love this… show more.

Most of this novel is narrated by Grace Marks, a servant girl who is supposed to have committed a murder but says she doesn’t remember doing it.

She is being interviewed by a psychiatrist who is trying to jog her memory. But is she telling him the truth? I love this use of a possibly unreliable narrator, based on a true story that remains unresolved to this day. It’s a disturbing and compelling read.

Atwood’s marvelous historical novel chronicles the 1843 trial of a 16-year-old Canadian girl, Grace Marks. She was tried for murdering her employer and his mistress. Atwood has woven a tale of power and mystery, the pieces sewn together, much as the quilt Grace sews during the narrative.

When I was a university student, I lived down the street from the shut doors of the Kingston Penitentiary, where the infamous Victorian murderer Grace Marks lived for 15 years. Atwood’s novel opens those heavy doors and invites readers in to make what we will of Grace’s own telling of her story. Is she—or Atwood—reliable? Whose memories matter when looking at guilt? Using fictional characters to explore the historical record of this terrible case, Atwood creates an immersive and compelling look at women’s culpability, craft, violence, and desire. 

Simply the best historical novel that I have ever read. Grace, our anti heroine, is constantly cast into different roles—victim, ingenue, murderess. But who is she really? Atwood captures the fundamental elusiveness and complexity of this fascinating historical figure. This is a book that you will want to crawl inside and live within. I recommend it for a rainy weekend with no other plans, preferably while chain-drinking tea.