A: Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood #AtoZChallenge

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Summary

It’s 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.

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 while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories? – Goodreads

My Thoughts

Margaret Atwood has been described as “one of the most brilliant and unpredictable novelists alive” – Literary Review. I would have to agree with that statement. This is the third of Attwood’s books that I’ve read and they have all been highlight reads for me. Alias Grace is an absolute highlight. The story of Grace Marks, one of the most well known female prisoners in the 19h century is a work of fiction based on fact. The end isn’t hidden from the reader. From the start the outcome is fairly obvious, but the way this book is written, the reader is still kept entranced and enthralled to the end. This book invoked so many emotions for me . I found it ‘unputdownable’. There were so many passages that I had to read over and over or stop and think about. I could easily describe Alias Grace as being very dark and sad but it is aso very humorous. I did often laugh out loud. My favourite genre is Historical Fiction and Alias Grace is the best of the best.

Alias Grace, deservedly, has received many literary awards around the world.

Quotes:

“If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”

“Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor.
Murderer is merely brutal. It’s like a hammer, or a lump of metal. I would rather be a murderess than a murderer, if those are the only choices.”

Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

About the Author

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master’s degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid’s Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood’s dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood’s work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.
– Goodreads

Published December 1996 by Doubleday Nan A. Talese

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