Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood Audiobook Review
In Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood explores the mind of one of 19th-century Canada’s many enigmatic figures. Accused and found guilty of murdering her company and his housekeeper, Grace Marks declares not to remember the gory details. Through Nancy and Simon’s careful interviews at Penetanguishene Asylum, her 2 lives gradually emerge under Sarah Gadon and Robert J. Sawyer’s skilful narrative.
Gadon flawlessly occupies Grace, a poor Irish immigrant concealing injury underneath deference implanted by challenge. Her soft brogue and tentative speech betray no inner chaos, yet simmering underneath her placid answers lies a will to survive by any means. Meanwhile, Sawyer provides doctorly gravitas to Simon, respectfully peeling back Grace’s layers to understand her supposed crime amidst the madness, gender and class prejudices widespread in a budding country.
Atwood transportations listeners in the middle of dynamic Toronto taverns, rowdy hops and the severe realities of dealing with lower-class women in 1840s Canada. Gadon and Sawyer bring each vibrant setting and character alive, from Grace’s mistresses to violent concubines, permitting their influence over her awakening sexuality and downward spiral to emerge clearly. Behind Victorian propriety hid freedoms and threats in a frontier society quickly changing.
Supplying historical context, the narrators brighten how gender roles denied Grace’s personhood and pushed her to the verge, a testament to Atwood’s feminist lens. Yet Alias Grace also finds glimmers of humankind in even its most unsavoury gamers, reminding the malleability of reality under societal pressures. Its expedition of memory’s fallibility and the blurred lines between insanity and reason leave listeners questioning grace and villainy.
Through intimate glances at Grace’s psyche and historical atmospherics brought to life, Atwood and her narrators craft an extraordinary glance into the making of a so-called monster. Alias Grace remains a nuanced triumph highlighting untold stories left by a still evolving justice system, as moving today as upon publishing.
