ATWOOD'S TAKE ON MURDER CASE.Byline: Laura Kurtzman Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire Margaret Atwood is a slight woman with curly hair and twinkling twinkling, in astronomy: see seeing. eyes. At 57, she is the author of 30 books, ``or more,'' she says with a dismissive wave of the hand. ``I've been doing it a long time.'' Her works include ``The Handmaid's Tale'' and ``The Robber Bride.'' Atwood's latest novel is ``Alias Grace,'' which debuted last week at No. 8 on the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Best Seller list. The novel recounts a sensational double murder case from 19th-century Canada, as seen through the eyes of Grace Marks Grace Marks was an Upper Canadian maid who was convicted in 1843 of murder in the death of her employer Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery. Her conviction was controversial, and sparked much debate about whether Marks was actually instrumental in the murder, or , a young servant. Grace and another servant, James McDermott James McDermott may refer to:
n. See epilogue. to her book, ``Attitudes toward her reflected contemporary ambiguity about the nature of women: was Grace a female fiend and temptress, the instigator in·sti·gate tr.v. in·sti·gat·ed, in·sti·gat·ing, in·sti·gates 1. To urge on; goad. 2. To stir up; foment. [Latin of the crime and the real murderer of Nancy Montgomery, or was she an unwilling victim, forced to keep silent by McDermott's threats and by fear for her own life?'' Q: Why did you want to write about Grace Marks? A: You never know why, but the story in itself is pretty fascinating, because here you have a gentleman living in this nice house with this housekeeper who is his mistress. Into this household come two servants. And they're only there for three weeks and a bit before the gentleman and his mistress are dead and in the cellar, and the servants have run off to the States with the silverware and the wardrobes. Q:So what happened in that three weeks? A: Then you have the whole situation in which each of the servants has a different story that they tell. And the witnesses have different stories that they tell. Public opinion divides on the subject of the woman - not on the subject of the man. Everyone agrees he did it and is a bad person. But it was only the murder of the gentleman that was ever tried, not the murder of the housekeeper. We know that Grace Marks didn't kill Thomas Kinnear, because there was just one bullet. Both servants are condemned to death, Grace as an accessory, which means that she knew but didn't tell. But people agitate on her behalf and say she was just a terrorized bystander by·stand·er n. A person who is present at an event without participating in it. bystander Noun a person present but not involved; onlooker; spectator Noun 1. forced to go along, etc. Then right before McDermott was hanged, he said, ``Grace Marks helped me strangle Strangle An options strategy where the investor holds a position in both a call and put with different strike prices but with the same maturity and underlying asset. This option strategy is profitable only if there are large movements in the price of the underlying asset. Nancy.'' And then he's gone: no cross-examination. There she is in the penitentiary penitentiary: see prison. with this question mark hanging over her. Did she or didn't she actually kill anybody? The other did-she-or-didn't-she was: Was she or wasn't she having an affair with James McDermott? Some thought she was. What is the evidence? Unfortunately, there isn't any. But everybody thought if you ran away with somebody and were found at the same inn, even though they were in separate bedrooms, then of course that's what you'd gone there for. Q: Did you ever reach any opinion about Grace's guilt? A: If I did, I wouldn't tell. But I didn't keep back any pieces of evidence that would be crucial. You know what I know. You have all the same evidence to make up your mind. Q: Did it matter to you if she was guilty or not? A: Well, that's a very hard question to answer. I can't answer that question without answering the previous question. I think what mattered to me was the way public opinion divided about her and the way people projected their feelings about women and their feelings about the lower classes, their feelings about servants, their feelings about immigrants. She was the perfect movie screen for other people's movies. Q: She was particularly a screen for men's sexual projections. A: Well, this was the Victorian age Noun 1. Victorian age - a period in British history during the reign of Queen Victoria in the 19th century; her character and moral standards restored the prestige of the British monarchy but gave the era a prudish reputation , and there was a respectable world in which such things were never mentioned. There were respectable women who were thought to be sexually cold. And there were other women who were thought to be fallen and bad and available. This was the age in London and Paris in which there were huge numbers of prostitutes, just huge. And child prostitutes. So, who was employing them? Q: Your first encounter with Grace came through the 19th-century Canadian author Susanna Moodie Susanna Moodie, née Strickland (6 December 1803 – 8 April 1885) was a British-Canadian author who wrote about her experiences as a settler in Canada. Moodie, younger sister of Catharine Parr Traill and Agnes Strickland, was one of a family of writers. , whose account was pretty torrid. A: Susannah Moodie writes it up in her book, ``Life in the Clearings.'' She made it quite steamy. She had Grace being in love with Thomas Kinnear. She had it like a play. Grace was in love with Thomas. James was in love with Grace. Grace hated Nancy, because she was her rival. And this is not entirely implausible. There is another witness who says Nancy was jealous of Grace. And you have a gentleman who is known to have an eye to to pay particular attention to; to watch. See also: Eye the female servants, one of whom is already his mistress. Q: Did your information about the case come from the court transcripts? A: From newspapers, the judge's notes JUDGE'S NOTES. They are short statements, made by a judge on the trial of a cause, of what transpires in the course of such trial. They usually contain a statement of the testimony of witnesses; of documents offered or admitted in evidence; of offers of evidence and whether it has been - although they're practically indecipherable. He made notes to himself during the trial. He actually recommended clemency Leniency or mercy. A power given to a public official, such as a governor or the president, to in some way lower or moderate the harshness of punishment imposed upon a prisoner. Clemency is considered to be an act of grace. for Grace. There was a lot of ambivalence about her. It hadn't come out at the trial, but James said at the hanging she helped him kill Nancy. He couldn't say that at the trial without admitting he did it. Q: Before your book came out, would the name Grace Marks have meant anything in Canada today? A: A little bit. It would have meant quite a lot up until the end of the last century. It was a famous murder case that keeps turning up in histories of Toronto. I did this little television play on her in '74. But she wasn't on everybody's lips like Lizzie Borden For other persons named Lizzie Borden, see Lizzie Borden (disambiguation). Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19 1860 – June 1 1927) was a New England spinster who was the central figure in the axe murders of her father and stepmother on August 4 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts, , because there's no ballet and no poem. And probably even among many people today, you might say those words to them, ``Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother 40 whacks,'' and they wouldn't have heard that before. Lizzie Borden was in the 1890s, and that's closer to us. Grace Marks is 1843. However, you watch, I bet you anything there will be a Grace Marks Cafe in Richmond Hill Richmond Hill may refer to: Places:
CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Margaret Atwood's novel, ``Alias Grace,'' examines a sensational murder case in 19th-century Canada. Knight-Ridder Tribune Photo Service |
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