Book Club Guide

Alias Grace

by Margaret Atwood · 1996 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

The woman whose story is told for her — and her refusal to be known
Memory, madness and what Victorian medicine did with women who disturbed it
History as a puzzle with pieces deliberately removed

About this book

In 1843, Grace Marks — a sixteen-year-old Irish immigrant servant — was convicted of the murder of her employer and his housekeeper in Upper Canada. A young psychiatrist, assigned to assess her, tries to reconstruct what actually happened. Atwood's novel examines how stories about women — their bodies, their madness, their guilt — are constructed and what they conceal.

Published in 1996, Alias Grace is based on the real case of Grace Marks, convicted of murder in Upper Canada in 1843. Atwood researched extensively in Canadian archives. It was adapted into a television series in 2017.

Discussion questions

Grace is an extraordinary narrator — intelligent, guarded, possibly unreliable. How does Atwood develop her — and how much of what Grace reveals do you trust?
The psychiatrist Simon Jordan is trying to reconstruct Grace's mental state. How does Atwood show the limitations of this approach — what does his method miss?
The novel is based on a real case. How does Atwood navigate the ethics of fictionalising real people — and what does fiction give her that straight historical account could not?
Grace's story has been told many times by others — newspapers, paintings, opinions. How does Atwood use this history of storytelling as part of the novel's argument?
Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale both deal with women whose lives are controlled by others' narratives. How do the two novels compare — and which feels more immediate to you?