Kilbourn Public Library Book Club

The book club selection for July is Canadian author Margaret Atwood's prize-winning novel Alias Grace. Alias Grace is based on real-life character, Grace Marks, who at age fifteen was sentenced to death for her part in the murder of her employer and his mistress. Although her sentence was changed to life imprisonment, many thought that she should have died on the gallows along with her co-conspirator.

Thus, Grace Marks became a "celebrated murderess" and an infamous enigma of the nineteenth century. Offering no simple solutions to this ongoing mystery, Atwood's prose will have readers laughing one minute and weeping the next.

Atwood employs two main points of view and voices in the novel. Do you trust one more than the other? As the story progresses, does Grace's voice (in dialogue) in Simon's part of the story change? If yes, how and why?

Were you of the same mind regarding Grace's innocence or guilt throughout the novel? At what points did you waver one way or the other?

Did any character in the novel freely choose his or her course of action?

Why do you suppose the book is titled Alias Grace?

Let us know what you think!