Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood
1996

It's Atwood time yo! Atwood, you are Canadian and Alias Grace is a freaking kick ass novel. I know I know, Atwood, blah blah blah. This one is also a Giller Prize winner (Like Mercy Among the Children) but I actually like this book.

So Alias Grace is the story of Grace Marks, who was incarcerated for double homicide in 1843 (for real), but there was a lot of controversy over whether or not she did the crime (as she did her time). In real life (and in the novel) Grace is a maid who supposedly kills her master and his mistress Nancy. Her accomplice, McDermott, is hanged but Grace is let go after being in prison for a super long time.

The novel has a woven plot (yes!) which follows the story of Grace (before and after the murders) and Dr. Simon Jordan - a brain doctor who is taking in Grace's story while dealing with weird daemons of his own.

Basically, the entire novel is a criticism for the distribution of knowledge and the bais that is inherent in story telling. Grace's half of the story is told in first person, so the reader knows when she's leaving parts out of her story, but the reader still doesn't know the truth. Dr. Simon's story isn't told in first person so we don't know what's going on in that wack mind of his. Still, even with Grace's first person narrative we're not sure whether she did it or not. Which is awesome! Unless you need everything to be tied up in the end.

In this novel Atwood uses quilting as a metaphorical form to weave together the story. Each chapter is headed by a picture of a type of quilted square with a title that alludes to the following chapter. Grace herself is an avid quilter. What is this all about? The fabrication of story telling? The intertextuality that reminds the reader at every chapter that this is a novel? A comment toward the complex nature of story telling? A thousand other things that Atwood is being all smart about? Yes. I'll just say yes.


I could go on about this novel forever. There is so much going on in it, so your best bet is just going and reading it yourself.
This novel is super killer awesome, which is why it gets a stormy four lightning bolts!

Reviewed by Meg!