It is Canada in 1843 - Queen Victoria reigns; her insurrection prone North American colonists are diverted and then transfixed by a shocking murder trial.
Against this backdrop Margaret Atwood, who gave us The Robber Bride and The Handmaid's Tale, presents her ninth novel. Atwood's virtuosity is at its peak as she traces her feminist thesis in Alias Grace, which is based on the true story of a 16-year-old servant girl accused of double murder. With few facts known, the author has drawn a haunting portrait of what might have been, a profoundly mesmerizing combination of actuality and invention.
Grace Marks and her fellow worker, James McDermott, were tried and convicted for the brutal killing of their employer Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. McDermott was hanged at the new gaol in Toronto, November 21, 1843. While Grace, due to her youth and "feminine weakness of mind," was sentenced to life in prison. She was also committed to a lunatic asylum following an emotional breakdown. Throughout both incarcerations Grace maintained that she had no memory of the murders or the victims.
Referring to the scandalous trial in her afterword Atwood writes: "The details were sensational: Grace Marks was uncommonly pretty and also extremely young; Kinnear's housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery, had previously given birth to an illegitimate child and was Thomas Kinnear's mistress; at her autopsy she was found to be pregnant. Grace and her fellow-servant James McDermott had run away to the United States together and were assumed by the press to be lovers. The combination of sex, violence, and the deplorable insubordination of the lower classes was most attractive to the journalists of the day."
Grace's story is revealed through letters, verse, news accounts, but primarily through her voice and that of Dr. Simon Jordan.
An ambitious young doctor with an interest in the field of repressed memory, Jordan is retained by those who believe Grace innocent to help her remember. As Grace's memory is prodded, she weaves her tale. Is Jordan trying to exploit her for professional gain. Or, is it possible that she is manipulating him?
Was Grace a naive pawn or a venomous Circe who bewitched then goaded McDermott into committing this appalling crime? The climax is a stunner!
In the adroit hands of Margaret Atwood, shades of guilt, innocence and complicity as well as the complexities of the human mind continue to fascinate. Alias Grace, a laudatory fictionalization of actual events, is a shivery Victorian tale of obsession and murder.