Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood's ninth novel is a work of historical fiction, although based on a true historical event - the story of Grace Marks, a Canadian housemaid who was convicted of murdering her employer Thomas Kinnear, and suspected of murdering his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery on July 23, 1840. The murder has been extensively reported in Canadian, American and British newspapers. It has sparked quite a controversy: Nancy was Kinnear's mistress who has before given birth to an illegitimate child, and at the autopsy she was found to be pregnant again. Grace has immigrated to Canada from Ireland in 1840 when she was 12; her mother has died on the ship carrying the Marks family and was buried at sea, leaving Grace and her younger siblings in care of her father, an abusive alcoholic. She was sentenced for the murders together with James McDermott, one of her fellow servants, as they were caught together during an attempted escape from Canada into the United States; McDermott has been put to death by hanging while Grace has been first sentenced into a confinement in an insane asylum, but later moved to Kingston penitentiary in Ontario, a maximum security prison. She spent almost three decades there before being pardoned; the last information available is that Grace has moved to live in New York. No one knows what became of Grace Marks after that.In the afterwood Atwood points out that while both McDermott and Marks have been condemnded to death for the Kinnear murder, opinions on Grace have been divided from the start; thanks to the efforts of her lawyer and a couple of petitioners her fate has been changed to life imprisonment, from which she has eventually been pardoned. Much ambiguity concerned her case, and opinions on her have been polarized:Attitudes towards her reflected contemporary ambiguity about the nature of women: was Grace a female fiend and temptress, the instigator of the crime and the real murderer of Nancy Montgomery, or was she an unwilling victim, forced to keep silent by McDermott’s threats and by fear for her own life? It was no help that she herself gave three different versions of the Montgomery murder, while James McDermott gave two.The novel is an attempt to explore the ambiguity concerning that murder and the character of Grace Marks, and a very complex and captivating one at that. The novel is told from two perspectives: as a first hand account by Grace, chronicling her life in the penitentiary and remembrances of her past, from her family's arrival in Canada, the struggles and hardships, employment at the Kinnear house and metting with James McDermott.The second narration is in the thirs person, from the perspective of Simon Jordan, a young and ambitious American practictioner of the growing field of psychiatry. As Grace claims to have no memory of the actual murders, he is to reconstruct her case. Slowly he tries to bring Grace closer and closer to the actual event, trying to unlock the mental chest holding the recording of that fateful day.The novel is quite interesting in its structure. Each section begins with an image of a quilt pattern, with additional poetry, citations from newspapers and historical documents, quotations from witnesses, confessions, etc. Grace's monologues are interchanged with Dr. Jordan's correspondence with his friends and family. Even it's generally classified as historical fiction, it has all captivating power of a fine detective thriller, a classic whodunnit, or as in this case shedunnit. Even though the verdict is in and the suspect is in prison, the jury is still much out, and as the pages turn the reader becomes more and more captured by the interplay of Grace's account, which shows her naivete and lack of education, yet reveals an intelligence and cleverness, and Simon's correspondence, research and tries to find the answer to the question which begins to haunt him: who is Grace Marks?Margaret Atwood is without a doubt one of the finest prose stylist, and her unique skill of weaving multiple layers of the story, combined with a vast research of the period she's writing about and relaying them in a rich and lyrical language true to time, place and character is incredible. She is also a poet, and while I have never read her poetry I think that I am not that far away by saying that she is a poet who choses to work with prose from time to time. Simple, everyday things are relayed in a way that immediately captures attention and demands a second look. Consider the opening paragraph:Out of the gravel there are peonies growing. They come up through the loose grey pebbles, their buds testing the air like snails’ eyes, then swelling and opening, huge dark-red flowers all shining and glossy like satin. Then they burst and fall to the ground.Or the opening of chapter 27:Today when I woke up there was a beautiful pink sunrise, with the mist lying over the fields like a white soft cloud of muslin, and the sun shining through the layers of it all blurred and rosy like a peach gently on fire.There is a special quality which few writers posess; the ability to construct a scene, using language which is concise yet elegant, beautiful even, and create an image which stays in the mind, like a burning peach. The novel is worth reading because of the sheer excellence of the language, but together with a skilfully unfolded and unpredictable plot and a rich tapestry of themes it becomes a work which is versatile and more than well worth the invested time.Alias Grace is a beautiful and haunting novel of murder, madness and methodology; it is a fine contribution to the canon of Canadian literature from one of the nation's best known and revered authors. A period piece rich in details of life in the Victorian Canada West, about the importance of class and status, the role of women in the society, the period of history where they were still treated as the feebler sex combined a psychological mystery with all the elements of a great thriller, with excellent characterization and brilliant yet unpretentious language. Even with all its darkness and seriousness of the mystery and situations, Atwood manages to employ humor in the narrative, in a way that is fitting and funny in a good way. It's a spellbinding book that anyone can pick up and become lost in the rich world that it paints, trying to figure out the mystery together with the people that populate it. A great example of combining all the mentioned elements with the the art of exquisite storytelling, Alias Grace is guaranteed to make you think long after the last page has been turned.
“Una storia, quando ci sei nel mezzo non è una storia, è solo confusione: un fragore indistinto, un andare alla cieca, tra vetri rotti e schegge di legno; è come una casa che vortica in una tromba d’aria, una nave che si schianta contro gli iceberg o precipita giù per le rapide, e nessuno a bordo può fermarla. È soltanto dopo che diventa una storia, prende una forma. È quando la racconti, a te stessa o a qualcun altro.”Magnifica ricostruzione biografica basata sulla rielaborazione critica del materiale documentario dell’epoca ed integrata, nelle sue parti più incerte o mancanti, dall'estro inventivo dell'autrice. La figura di Grace Marks, che impressionò per decenni l’opinione pubblica nella seconda metà del XIX secolo in Canada - e di riflesso in Gran Bretagna e negli Stati Uniti - ne esce così trasfigurata a personaggio letterario, di quelli che restano scolpiti indelebilmente nella memoria.La sua condanna alla pena capitale per duplice omicidio, poi tramutata nel carcere a vita in considerazione della giovane età (16 anni) e, presumibilmente, anche dell’avvenenza, divise i contemporanei in innocentisti e colpevolisti a causa dell’ambiguità dei fatti emersi al processo, che potevano suggerire tanto una colpevolezza mascherata da scaltra simulazione, quanto una innocenza compromessa dalla stupidità e dal caso. L’esposizione degli avvenimenti, inframmezzata da lettere, brani di testimonianze e citazioni letterarie, alterna la narrazione in prima persona di Grace - voce narrante principale, che ripercorre il passato e commenta il presente - a quella in terza persona, di narratore esterno onnisciente, che ha per protagonista il medico Simon Jordan nei suoi momenti privati. Questo personaggio di invenzione, che si propone di studiare la personalità di Grace in base alle moderne teorie per la cura delle malattie mentali, finirà come soggiogato dal fascino misterioso della donna, scoprendo, insieme ad un'altra Grace, anche i lati più oscuri del proprio inconscio, e dimostrando in tal modo il fallimento della scienza e della ragione di fronte alla insondabile complessità dell’animo umano. Singolare e suggestivo l’elemento simbolico che la Atwood adotta per scandire il racconto, cioè la trapunta da letto tanto vagheggiata da Grace, raffigurata graficamente nei suoi vari soggetti all'inizio di ogni unità narrativa, alla quale dà anche il titolo. Ogni soggetto, stilizzato e rappresentato tramite triangoli giustapposti di stoffe colorate, può essere interpretato in modi diversi a seconda della prospettiva da cui lo si osserva. Ed è come se la scrittrice ci suggerisse che lo stesso avviene anche per Grace e la sua storia.Nulla è certo, inquadrato, assoluto o inequivocabilmente verificabile, perché il ricordo è fugace e la realtà spesso imperscrutabile. E allora anche la canonica distinzione tra vittime e colpevoli si fa più sfumata, in quanto "non sono i colpevoli che devono essere perdonati, sono le vittime, sono loro la causa di tutto lo scompiglio. Se solo fossero meno deboli e più attente, se pensassero alle conseguenze, se la smettessero di cacciarsi nei guai, pensi a quanto dolore risparmiato, nel mondo."Stabilire l’innocenza o la colpevolezza e risolvere l’enigma del caso giudiziario, tuttavia, non è lo scopo primario del romanzo, in quanto i temi che solleva travalicano i confini del semplice “giallo”, contribuendo a tratteggiare un quadro socio-culturale del periodo a cui fa riferimento (la condizione femminile, il divario e le prevaricazioni tra le classi, il trattamento oltraggioso nelle carceri...) e, insieme, uno straordinario, commovente ritratto di donna ferita dalla vita fin dall'infanzia, con tutte le sue connotazioni e contraddizioni.
What do You think about Alias Grace (1998)?
Margaret Atwood's writing skills are extraordinary, and she has a wonderful legacy of books that she has written. This book tells the true story of a crime that was committed in Richmond, Ontario in 1843. The true facts of the case are that a landowner and his housekeeper were killed in their home. The stable boy and the maid were accused and convicted of the crime. Both were sentenced to death but the maid (Grace) was saved from the gallows and spent 28 years in prison. These are the bare bones of the crime, and to this day, the actual truth of what happened is still not clear. Ms. Atwood has taken this story and written a book of fiction that is so real and the characters so believable that we readers seem to get the truth of what actually happened on that summer afternoon in 1843. I love the way this story unfolds. There are a variety of writing styles within the book from first person to third person narratives, copies of correspondance written by the characters, poetry from such greats as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and newspaper articles. I don't think I've ever seen such a variety of writing styles in one work of fiction. Grace Marks was a remarkable woman, and Ms. Atwood has depicted her in this book as one of the strongest female characters that I've come across in a long time. This book is mesmerizing and totally unpredictable. I found as I read that I just couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next. Then something would come out that was totally unexpected and away I'd go again- turning page after page to try to finally figure out what actually happened. This book deservedly won the 1996 Giller Prize, and since it was only the third year that the prize was offered, I think set the benchmark for future winners. I have read most of the winners to date, and I must honestly say that this book is the best of the lot. Literate, warm, poignant, sad, hopeful. You name the emotion, and you'll probably find it in this book.
—Shirley Schwartz
Margaret Atwood occupies a strange nook in my heart. She's become a bit of a chore lately, as I'm including her in my senior honors thesis; on the other hand, I've now read almost all of her novels, and while none are bad or even...not really good. Just that because a few of the novels shine so brightly, that the others seem duller in comparison.Well, Alias Grace is a supernova. It's an absolutely phenomenal novel, and a truly thrilling read. It's a departure for Atwood, as it's historical fiction (of course, she did do the Journals of Susanna Moodie before), but moreover, it employs similar narrative techniques as detective fiction, while turning them on their head--in any case, it's definitely a page-turner, which is not something you usually mention in conjunction with Atwood. This doesn't discount the literary merit--there's enough meat in the book to write a dissertation or five on it. There's something quite fresh in her style here, with many many passages I absolutely had to read aloud to whomever was (un)fortunate enough to be near me as I read.The general structure of the novel is from the outset quite fascinating--each section is tied under the flag of a quilt pattern, and each begins with a series of epigraphs, combining historical documents, poetry, "witness accounts" and so forth--ultimately questioning the validity of each, and how we reconfigure the past with necessarily limited frameworks at hand. Writing a fictionalized account of a historical person is itself an indictment of history, but Atwood takes it so much farther, and in much more wonderfully 'political' ways. Grace is still a frustrating enigma by the end of the text, but you'll adore her and her sly moves, her secret longings, and her storytelling ability--Dr. Jordan, as we discover, has no idea what he's getting into with her. It's certainly a dark read, and often I would have to lay the book down for at least a minute or two to catch my breath. But Atwood has a wonderful way of infusing humor into even the bleakest of moments, so there were just as many times when I found myself laughing aloud. This book will not leave you for a long time.
—Jamie
I'm giving this three stars, but the correct rating would be 2 1/2 stars - I liked this book, for the most part, but there were just too many unanswered questions and minor annoyances for me to want to read it again. Usually, I hate giving away the endings of books in my reviews, but I honestly cannot talk about Alias Grace without giving away major plot points. You've been warned. So: for the most part, this was a cool story, mostly because it's based on the true story of Grace Marks, who suppo
—Madeline
