Alias Grace, although a work of fiction, is based on one of Canada's most infamous murder cases. In Toronto, in 1843 16-year-old Grace Marks and fellow servant, James McDermott were accused of murdering their employer, Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper and mistress, Nancy Montgomery. Both were sentenced to death and McDermott was hanged. However, Grace's lawyer was able to get her sentence commuted to life imprisonment by arguing her youth, her gender, and, according to him, her feeble-mindedness.

The story opens when Grace has been in Kingston Penitentiary for 15 years. This is a period of reform in Canada and a group of clergy and others hire Dr Simon Jordan, a young American psychiatrist, to establish her innocence as Grace claims to have no memory of the actual murders. The story is told from different perspectives. Each chapter begins with an actual quote from the period, including excerpts from the trial, her and James' confessions, newspaper articles, and from Susanna Moodie, an early Canadian writer who went to see Grace, both at the penitentiary and, in the insane asylum, where she spent five years. The story is also told by Grace in the first person while Jordan's part of the story is told in the third.

Each chapter is also named after a quilt pattern with a corresponding picture of the pattern and each pattern gives us a hint of what to expect in the chapter. Throughout the story, Grace talks about quilt patterns and she is often pictured piecing a quilt together while telling her story. Grace, frequently, points out that quilts appear differently when seen from different angles and, like the quilts, Grace's story is pieced together from fragments, not all of which seem to fit together.

Atwood never establishes the guilt or innocence of Grace. Instead, she leaves it up to the reader to decide whether Grace is the innocent she seems to portray herself or the murdering temptress others have named her. As Grace tells her story, she often admits to the reader, but not to Jordan, that she is telling him what she thinks he wants to hear, so that we are never sure whether to believe any or all of what she says.

But this story isn't really about whether Grace is innocent or guilty although guilt plays an important role in the story. It is about class, and status, and about the role of women in Victorian Canada at a time when women, regardless of class, were seen as the weaker sex, feeble of mind and body, always at the mercy of men who invariably seem to betray them. According to Grace, poor women have only three avenues open to them, service in a wealthy household, marriage, or prostitution.

Alias grace is a fascinating look at Canada West (Ontario) in Victorian times; it is also an intriguing psychological thriller as well as a brilliant feminist novel. Margaret Atwood is often considered Canada's greatest living writer. It is easy to see why when you read Alias Grace.