In her bestselling novel" The Handmaid's Tale, " Margaret Atwood
masterfully took us to a chilling world of the future. In her
astonishing new novel "Alias Grace, " she just as convincingly takes us
back 150 years and inside the life and mind of one of the most notorious
women of the 1840s. Grace Marks is serving a life sentence for her part
in the vicious murders of Thomas Kinnear, a wealthy landowner, and Nancy
Montgomery, his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is
innocent; others think her evil or insane. Grace herself now claims to
have no memory of the murders.
Simon Jordan, a young New England doctor in the field of mental health
and an expert on amnesia, has been engaged to find out the truth. To do
so, he must awaken that part of Grace's mind that lies dormant, using
the practices of the science he has such great faith in. As Grace
reveals details about Kinnear's and Nancy's unconventional domestic
arrangements, Simon brings her closer and closer to the day she has so
determinedly repressed.
Into this rich work of the imagination--of sex, violence, immigration,
spiritualism, and the brutal existence of the underprivileged--Margaret
Atwood has brought her brilliant insights into the relationships between
men and women and those between the society of the entitled and those
without positions. Superbly evoking a century past and alive with
mesmerizing storytelling, "Alias Grace" is vintage Atwood.
