Alias Grace Book

Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor...

Highlight of 2017 for me!
A pure gem. That is Alias Grace, for me. Another grand work of Margaret Atwood. Atwood, described as 'one of the most brilliant and unpredictable novelists alive' (Literary Review)……and also: 'A witty, elegant, generous and patient writer.' I would say a strong-minded, self-willed, wayward writer, sometimes also dark and ruthless. This story keeps you hooked from beginning to end, following Grace Marks in her troubled life. A colourful, multifaceted and intriguing story, that keeps you reading for more than 500 pages….
This is how Atwood describes the story outline in her Author's Afterword, which I recommend everyone to read in full:
About Grace is a work of fiction, although it is based on reality. Its central figure, Grace Marks, was one of the most notorious Canadian women of the 1840s, having been convicted of murder at the age of sixteen. The Kinnear-Montgomery murders took place on July 23, 1843, and were extensively reported not only in Canadian newspapers but in those of the United States and Britain. The details were sensational: Grace Marks was uncommonly pretty and also extremely young. Nancy Montgomery had previously given birth to an illegitimate child and was Thomas Kinnear's mistress; at her autopsy she was found to be pregnant. Grace and her fellow servant James McDermott had run away to the US together and were assumed by the press to be lovers…..The trial was held in early November. Only the Kinnear murder was tried. …. McDermott was hanged in front of a huge crowd on November 21, but opinion about Grace was divided from the start and due to the efforts of her lawyer and a group of respectable gentlemen petitioners -who pleaded her youth, the weakness of her sex and her supposed witlessness her sentence was commuted to life…. She continued to be written about over the course of the century, and she continued to polarize opinion. Attitudes towards her reflected contemporary ambiguity about the nature of women: was Grace a female fiend and temptress, the instigator of the crime and the real murderer of Nancy Montgomory, or was she an unwilling victim, forced to keep silent by McDermott's threats and by fear of her own life? ….

So this story takes you in more than 500 pages in a quiet pace through the life of Grace… and a variety of characters surround her in the progress of the story. Including the fascinating Dr. Jordan, who comes into play to assess Grace and in that process we witness his struggle and moral decline….As Atwood says in her afterword: she stayed with the historical facts, but there were gaps there or unclarities/various versions and in that case she took the liberty to fill those gaps in.

What can I say. I think Atwood is a true artist - solid writing - sharp observations - great writing. What more can I want? 5 stars and highly recommended. I'm a fan (was already, now it's official :-))