Alias Grace - Hardcover

Atwood, Margaret

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385475713 ISBN 13: 9780385475716

Publisher: Nan A. Talese, 1996

Synopsis

In the astonishing new novel by the author of the bestsellers The Robber Bride, Cat's Eye, and The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood takes us back in time and into the life and mind of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century. Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer, the wealthy Thomas Kinnear, and of Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence after a stint in Toronto's lunatic asylum, Grace herself claims to have no memory of the murders.

Dr. Simon Jordan, an up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness, is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story, from her family's difficult passage out of Ireland into Canada, to her time as a maid in Thomas Kinnear's household. As he brings Grace closer and closer to the day she cannot remember, he hears of the turbulent relationship between Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, and of the alarming behavior of Grace's fellow servant, James McDermott. Jordan is drawn to Grace, but he is also baffled by her. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories? Is Grace a female fiend, a bloodthirsty femme fatale? Or is she a victim of circumstances?

Alias Grace is a beautifully crafted work of the imagination that reclaims a profoundly mysterious and disturbing story from the past century. With compassion, an unsentimental lyricism, and her customary narrative virtuosity, Margaret Atwood mines the often convoluted relationships between men and women, and between the affluent and those without position. The result is her most captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying work since The Handmaid's Tale--in short, vintage Atwood.

About this title

Review:

In 1843, a 16-year-old Canadian housemaid named Grace Marks was tried for the murder of her employer and his mistress. The sensationalistic trial made headlines throughout the world, and the jury delivered a guilty verdict. Yet opinion remained fiercely divided about Marks--was she a spurned woman who had taken out her rage on two innocent victims, or was she an unwilling victim herself, caught up in a crime she was too young to understand? Such doubts persuaded the judges to commute her sentence to life imprisonment, and Marks spent the next 30 years in an assortment of jails and asylums, where she was often exhibited as a star attraction. In Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood reconstructs Marks's story in fictional form. Her portraits of 19th-century prison and asylum life are chilling in their detail. The author also introduces Dr. Simon Jordan, who listens to the prisoner's tale with a mixture of sympathy and disbelief. In his effort to uncover the truth, Jordan uses the tools of the then rudimentary science of psychology. But the last word belongs to the book's narrator--Grace herself.

From the Back Cover:

“Brilliantly realized, intellectually provocative and maddeningly suspenseful.”
– Maclean’ s

“Atwood confirms her status as the outstanding novelist of our age.”
– Sunday Times (U.K.)

“Atwood not only crafts an eerie, unsettling tale of murder and obsession, but also a stunning portrait of the lives of women in another time.”
– Kirkus Reviews

“A masterpiece…perhaps Atwood’s best, most important novel to date.”
– Ottawa Citizen

“A great book of such wit, wisdom and dazzling storytelling that it leaves me in no doubt that Atwood is the most outstanding novelist currently writing in English.”
– Sydney Morning Herald

“Atwood’s humor has never been slyer, her command of complex material more adept, her eroticism franker.…This is a stupendous performance. . . .”
– Booklist

“[Atwood] has surpassed herself, writing with a glittering, singing intensity.…”
– New York Review of Books

“Stunning.…Atwood is in perfect control. And her fusion of real events and fiction is as contemporary as it is ingenious.”
– Calgary Herald

“A rare and splendid novel that pulls you in and won’t let go.…”
– Washington Post Book World

“Atwood’s imaginative control of her period flows, irresistible and superb.…[She] has pushed the art to its extremes and the result is devastating. This, surely, is as far as a novel can go.”
– Independent on Sunday (U.K.)

“Seductive, beautifully articulated.…Brilliantly conceived and executed.…”
– San Francisco Chronicle

“Astonishing.…”
– Financial Post

“A sublime read.…As satisfying as the best whodunit.”
– London Free Press

“An absorbing and brilliantly told story.”
– Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About this edition

• Publisher: Nan A. Talese
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0385475713
• ISBN 13: 9780385475716
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 468