Alias Grace

 Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, 482 pages.

This novel by Atwood takes the life of historical murderess Grace Marks as inspiration to explore her story and world. Grace was 16 and working as a maid in 1843 when she and James McDermott were convicted of the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper and mistress, Nancy Montgomery. Grace was sentenced to life in prison, although she claimed to have no memory of the murders. When this book picks up, ten years later, a number of people have been campaigning on her behalf and have hired an up-and-coming expert in the new field of mental health to evaluate her and determine her sanity. Most of the novel is Grace telling this Dr. Simon Jordan her story, which is a very full account of the life and choices of a poor young woman in the 19th century.

I thought this was a good book, but also found it a little underwhelming. As always, Atwood has things to say and writes a detailed, rich book, but I'm afraid there wasn't all that much here that wowed me, although I did find it very interesting the way that she seamlessly wove together historical fact and fiction. 

Fun Fact: This is also a limited series on Netflix! Which is actually how I came to read it, and the novel definitely cleared up some ambiguity the show left me with.