Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood

In the early 1840's, Grace Marks and James McDermott were convicted of murder. They murdered their employer and the housekeeper. She was the maid of the house and he was the farmhand. McDermott was hung. She was imprisoned for life. She gave three conflicting testimonies for the time of the murders. This is true. Now for the fiction.

In the late 1850's, Dr. Simon Jordan travels to Kingston, Ontario, Canada, to interview Grace Marks. He is a head doctor, who studies the problems of the mind. Grace suffers from hysterical amnesia. He is hoping to break through her barriers and discover what happened to her. Why had she spent five years of her jail time in an insane asylem? What happened the day her employer and his mistress were killed?

Atwood took a true story and followed up with a plausible happening to show up what may have been happening inside Grace Marks' mind. Dr. Jordan listens to her life story from her childhood in Ireland through the trip to North America, her life in Canada, and her employment as a household servant. Her life story is told in first person narrative. Third voice is also used to tell the reader Dr. Jordan's story both with Grace and with his time in Kingston. The author also uses fictional personal letters, real newstories and real reports of the incident.

The book had its ups and downs. I usually was involved in Grace's narration. I was usually bored during Jordan's outside life. The story highlighted the social niceties of the time, both among the upper class as well as those in the servants' quarters. Jordan is involved with his doctoring and avoiding marriage - or not being interested in any woman enough to consider marriage. His story is uneven.

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