BOOK REVIEW: Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.

This is a book review for Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. I read this one for my TBR Pile Challenge. 

In Alias Grace, bestselling author Margaret Atwood has written her most captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying work since The Handmaid's Tale. She takes us back in time and into the life 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, Thomas Kinnear, and Nancy Montgomery, 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. 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 while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories? Is Grace a female fiend? A bloodthirsty femme fatale? Or is she the victim of circumstances?

"People want a guilty person. If there has been a crime, they want to know who did it. They don't like not knowing."

I had no idea until I read the author's note that this story was based on a true story. Margaret Atwood manages to create such a rich back story of Grace Marks and the painstaking detail she took with the research into this story is obvious. The book starts after the murders when Grace is in prison. The other man accused of the murders, James McDermot, is hung as his punishment for his role in the crime. Before he was executed, he left a written confession that the murders were entirely Grace's idea. A therapist, Dr. Simon Jordan, wishes to interview her to determine her innocence for a possible pardon request. Everyone around Grace, from the fellow prisoners to the Governor's wife to the Reverend to Dr. Jordan has very strong feelings about Grace's innocence. But who is right? Did Grace Marks murder Nancy and Thomas in cold blood? Was she actually a victim of James McDermot? Did she lose all memory of the murders as she claims? 

"Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes Run mad, as if mad is a direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad, you don't go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in."

I was fully invested in the book from the very beginning. I wanted to hear Grace's story and yes, like the media accounts in the novel, I had a morbid curiosity to know all of the details regarding the crime. I got the feeling that Dr. Jordan had this same morbid curiosity. Grace begins her sessions with Dr. Jordan by describing the events in her childhood that led to her coming to Canada. She eventually tells of the events that led her to working for Thomas Kinnear and the events leading up to the murder. Dr. Jordan pushes Grace to open up and at times, seems impatient that she is giving all this extra back story. 

It is hard to trust the narration of either Grace Marks or Dr. Jordan. Even when it is Grace's voice, she appears to be holding back, both from Dr. Jordan and the reader. It is easy to see why Grace wants to hold back from the doctor. She doesn't want to reveal too much for fear of being thought crazy and being committed to an asylum. I also questioned Dr. Jordan's motives. His motives seemed to be about ego more than anything else and then eventually it is clear that he is falling in love with Grace. I really distrusted his point of view when it came to the sex/rape scenes between him and a woman he was having an affair with. He says that the woman wants to have sex with her, despite the fact that she repeatedly says no. I think I could have done without those scenes.

The ending of this book is a bit ambiguous. I wasn't sure why Margaret Atwood would choose to end it the way she did until I read the author's note. Atwood stuck to the factual case of Grace Marks as much as she could, but in the end this is a work of fiction. In real life, the innocence of Grace Marks was still a question up until her death. The ending of the book was a bit anticlimactic for me, but this was still a very compelling story.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy! This is another great novel by Margaret Atwood.