Alias Grace
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| Alias Grace | |
 First U.K. edition cover |
|
| Author | Margaret Atwood |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Dante Gabriel Rossetti (painting), Kong (first edition design) |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | McClelland & Stewart (first edition); Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (first U.K. edition) |
| Publication date | September, 1996 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 470 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 077100835X (first edition); ISBN 0747527873 (first U.K. edition) |
Alias Grace is a historical fiction novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. First published in 1996 by McClelland & Stewart, it won the Canadian Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
The story is about the notorious 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Upper Canada. Two servants of the Kinnear household, Grace Marks and James McDermott, were convicted of the crime. McDermott was hanged and Marks was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Although the novel is based on factual events, Atwood constructs a narrative with a fictional doctor, Simon Jordan, who researches the case. Although ostensibly conducting research into criminal behaviour, he slowly becomes personally involved in the story of Grace Marks and seeks to reconcile the mild mannered woman he sees with the murder of which she has been convicted.
Atwood also wrote an earlier work, the 1974 CBC Television film The Servant Girl, about Marks. However, in Alias Grace Atwood says that she has changed her opinion on the question of Marks' culpability.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Margaret Atwood Profile at Bold Type Exclusive interviews, a book excerpt, and an audio excerpt; plus text of an 1843 letter used as research for the novel.
| Preceded by A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry |
Giller Prize 1996 |
Succeeded by Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler |
