"Alias Grace" by Margaret Atwood

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Last year I read The Blind Assassin by Atwood, and it left me reeling because of its beauty and pain. So, I thought, "This must be her best. 'Cause it's so damn beautiful that she can't possibly write like this consistently." I was proven wrong. Though I still prefer Blind Assassin, let me assure you that Alias Grace is written with the same hauntingly beautiful prose.

And it's not just the prose that's haunting--it's also the subject. Grace Marks was a real-life maid who was accused of murdering her employer and his housekeeper-cum-paramour. The events occurred in Canada in the 18th century, and Grace Marks's story and guilt were subject of much debate. According to the historical accounts, Grace was in cahoots with James McDermott, another individual who worked for Thomas Kinnear, Grace's employer. Marks and McDermott allegedly murdered Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, the housekeeper, out of envy and greed. They ran away together, but were caught after they had crossed into the US. Both Grace and McDermott were tried, and both were given the death sentence. However, while McDermott was hanged, Grace's sentence was commuted. This is where Atwood's account begins--while Grace is in the penitentiary. A doctor, intent on studying what causes the criminal mind, comes to talk to and observe Grace.

What I found especially fascinating is the fact that, although Grace is the socially inferior character amongst all those peopling the story, and is the one whose morality is constantly put into question, Atwood is excellent at showing the foibles and pettiness of all the other upper class characters. Moreover, the writing mimics the formal diction of the 18th c. upper class, since the narrative is often told from either Grace's or the doctor's point of view (some portions of the narrative are told through letters). But couch the basest of human thoughts in this elegaic kind writing, and the effect is disturbing. It's as if no matter how pretty the veneer is, there is no hiding how rotten people can be.

I can't get over the breadth of issues Atwood takes up in this book--from the state of women, to class distinctions, to the immigrant experience, even to the beginning stages of psychiatry and neuropsychology--and all of it with intelligence and graceful insight. But mostly, her characters are wonderful: well fleshed out, complicated, intense, and, in the case of Grace, dignified and enigmatic.

In the end, no questions are answered, no major issues resolved. Atwood staunchly sticks to the basics of the historical accounts. But where perhaps there was merely a caricature of Grace and the other people mentioned surrounding her, there are now flesh and blood people, who, come to think of it, don't seem very different from the best and worst of us.

Read: 1/18/09

5/5 stars

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