Margaret Atwood’s 1996 novel Alias Grace fictionalizes a notorious true-crime Canadian tale: the murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. Atwood’s interest in the story began years prior to writing the novel when she discovered the writings of Canadian pioneer and author Susanna Moodie. Moodie’s memoir Life in the Clearings vs. the Bush contains a chapter on Grace Marks, one of the servants convicted in the Kinnear/Montgomery murders. Atwood wrote poems informed by Moodie’s published works and a television script, The Servant Girl, about Grace Marks. By the time she wrote Alias Grace, Atwood had reevaluated Moodie’s version: "Moodie said at the outset of her account that she was writing Grace Marks’s story from memory, and as it turns out, her memory was no better than most.” Join us as we read and discuss Alias Grace in context with select writings from Susanna Moodie and Margaret Atwood.
((Nancy Quick Langer - Thursday - In-Person))
