Susan Van Dyne, professor of women’s studies

“I’m fascinated by historical novels that recreate the unrecorded stories
of women, and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace is one of the very best.
The role of memory and how it works is central to the novel and
it uses multiple points of view to unsettle easy answers about meanings
of the central female character’s life. Atwood fascinates me by how
precisely she can render the textures of daily life in the Victorian era,
and at the same time how her probing of the unconscious resonates
with our own contemporary doubts, fears, urges. At heart, the novel is a
mystery, and I return to it again and again, captivated by what I’m still
working to understand.”