ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 16, 1997 TAG: 9703140028
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: BOOK REVIEWS
Murder in Toronto makes compelling tale
Reviewed by MARGARET GRAYSON
ALIAS GRACE. By Margaret Atwood. Doubleday. $24.95.
Margaret Atwood has taken the case of a double murder committed near Toronto, Canada, in the early part of the last century, and, after meticulous research of the facts, made it her own. She has spun a tale of such compelling, haunting and hurting dimensions that you live with it while you are reading it, and it lives with you long after you finish.
The crime: the vicious murders of wealthy Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and pregnant mistress, by James McDermott, the hired hand, and Grace Marks, the serving girl.
The question: Was Grace, a 16-year-old Irish immigrant and backstairs maid, the unwilling accomplice or the instigator of this bloody, greedy and gratuitous, ill-conceived and badly executed crime?
The novel is Grace Marks's story. It takes the reader from Ireland, where Grace's life is full of poverty, across the Atlantic on the worst of voyages, to employment at age 13 in one of the finest houses in Toronto, where her only friend dies of a botched abortion next to her in the attic bed they share. Then follows new employment in the Richmond Hill home of a gentleman farmer, Thomas Kinnear, to flight and capture, and finally, to trial and imprisonment, interrupted by seven years in an insane asylum.
In Atwood's hands, this novel of sex and violence becomes a novel of manners. She has captured not only the manner of speech but also the dress, the conventions and mannerisms of the first half of the 19th century. She has also caught some of its limitations, for of secondary interest is the description of the pre-Freudian treatment of mental disease, which included the use of spiritualism, mesmerism and the incipient interest in the study of multiple personalities called dedoublement personalities or dissociation of personality.
Just as the case of its heroine must always remain a mystery, ``Alias Grace'' has no denouement. The reader's last glimpse of Grace is of a woman, still young, still remarkably beautiful, who feels a ``heaviness inside'' - a baby? a tumor? A heaviness, then, bearing either life or death. Again the question, again the mystery - symbolic of the whole novel.
MARGARET GRAYSON teaches Latin at North Cross School.
BOOKMARKS
Historical narrative in letters
Couple's letters create historical narrative
Reviewed by DABNEY STUART
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF NORTHRUP FRYE AND HELEN KEMP: 1932-39. Edited by Robert D. Denham. Two volumes. University of Toronto Press. $70 per volume.
These are remarkable letters by remarkable people. The distinguished critic and scholar Northrop Frye and his wife Helen Kemp met in 1931 while assisting in a Gilbert and Sullivan performance at Victoria College at the University of Toronto. Over the next eight years they fell in love, married and lived through extended separations caused by the necessity to complete their educations and by financial difficulties.
The record of their lives during these separations is more than the articulate and passionate longing for each other. The letters also create a narrative of their changing tones and maturing; they compose as well a social history of the period, focusing on the Depression, the rise of fascism in Europe, the development of Frye as critic and reader, the growth of Canada as a culture.
Much of Frye's and Kemp's preoccupations are music - they were both pianists - and art: Kemp worked at the Art Gallery of Toronto and was instrumental in the early development of art education in the galleries of Canada. Both writers give fascinating accounts of concerts and exhibitions in Canada and Europe. Frye, of course, writes brilliantly about his literary interests and studies, and especially about Blake.
The letters contain, too, the inevitable daily gossip about friends and enemies, which becomes repetitive. But these are easily recognizable and one can skip about. In fact, the volumes are so clearly organized that one can read either straight on or pick and choose.
Frye remarks on his ``invincible shyness'' but lived a very active social life. In fact, one of the most impressive attitudes revealed is the liberality both writers evince toward one another. They miss each other, of course, but they carry on complex lives with other people during their forced absences. This reveals the fundamental trust they had in each other, as unusual as their patience and good humor. How could seven years of protracted separations be endured without humor?
Robert Denham, Marshall Fishwick Professor of English at Roanoke College, provides meticulous and focused notes and perceptive and helpful introductions to the volumes as a whole and to the individual sections.
DABNEY STUART'S latest book of poems, ``Long Gone,'' was published in November by LSU Press.
Lawyer novel succeeds
Reviewed by CHIP BARNETT
SILENT WITNESS. By Richard North Patterson. Knopf. $22.95
Start in the present with Tony Lord, famous and decent defense attorney going home to his gorgeous and loving actress wife. (Oh no, another lawyer novel?)
Flash back (for 130 pages) to a small Ohio town in 1967. (Oh no, another '60s novel?) Seventeen-year-old star athlete Tony is accused of the murder of his girlfriend, Alison. The case never goes to trial, but he's a pariah, supported only by his best friend, Sam, and especially Sam's girlfriend, Sue.
Return to the present, with Sam's being charged with the murder of his 17-year-old student, a girl he made pregnant. To the rescue comes Tony, called in by Sue, now Sam's wife.
Is Sam innocent? Does Tony believe him? Does Tony still love Sue? Will Tony-the-lawyer tarnish an old friend's image to win Sam's trial? Will Alison's old unsolved murder return to haunt everyone?
Sound good? Well, dang, it is. I can't retain my curmudgeon's license without noting a few quibbles - lousy ending, clumsy banter, Tony too sanctimonious - but I bit my nails through all 494 pages.
Why? Because the characters were too complex and realistic to be predictable. I was desperate to learn what would happen to them. Even if he does write about lawyers and the '60s, Patterson deserves his success.
CHIP BARNETT is a Rockbridge County librarian.
Patterson's also on tape
Reviewed by MARY ANN JOHNSON
SILENT WITNESS. By Richard North Patterson. Read by Boyd Gaines. Abridged. Random House AudioBooks. $24.
If you want to learn what it's all about but aren't sure you want to dedicate limited reading time to satisfying the curiosity, the cassette set is a good alternative. The problems Chip Barnett noted are also evident in the audio adaptation, but here, too, the story moves along, and the complexity of the characters makes an impression.
MARY ANN JOHNSON is book page editor.
Books in Brief
Bedside reading for all who love literature
Reviewed by LYNN ECKMAN
A HISTORY OF READING. By Alberto Manguel. Viking. $26.95.
Anyone who loves books and is compelled to read should own ``A History of Reading'' as well as Nicholas A. Basbanes' ``A Gentle Madness,'' which was reviewed here last fall. Both authors share their enthusiasm for the written word, and those of us equally besotted savor their efforts, luxuriating in them.
Born in Buenos Aires, Manguel once served as reader for the blind writer Jorge Luis Borges, a job that intensified his love of literature. The son of a diplomat, who of course traveled widely, Manguel found his only permanent home in books. Often without a language in common with his contemporaries, he discovered a world dating back 6000 years. He shares that world with us in anecdotes, digressions and histories which are erudite and humorous in equal parts.
The French have a wonderful phrase, ``un livre de chevet,'' which means a book kept by one's bed to peruse before sleeping. ``A History of Reading'' is a perfect choice and will provide sweet dreams for years to all who are addicted to that most pervasive and seductive of pursuits ... reading.
Reviewed by SUSAN TRENT
AMERICA'S FIRST LADIES. By Betty Boyd Caroli. The Reader's Digest Association. $29.95.
Betty Boyd Caroli examines the roles the first lady has played throughout the history of the U.S. Caroli looks at the first lady as a helpmate, a political adviser, a mother and an advocate of social change. A variety of anecdotes makes the text interesting reading. Photographs of lesser-known first ladies such as the wives of Presidents Hoover, McKinley, Harding and Hayes, are worth noting as are those of popular clothing styles for first ladies. Pleasant to read, ``America's First Ladies'' enlightens readers about the vast personality differences of the women who have served our country as first lady.
Reviewed by LARRY SHIELD
WHERE RIVER TURNS TO SKY. By Gregg Kleiner. Avon. $23.
Aging and dying are explored in this interesting first book by Greg Kleiner. When a friend of many years dies alone in a nursing home, George - himself 80 years old - decides people should be allowed more dignity in old age. He takes an insurance settlement and opens an elder-care facility where old folks fend for themselves and one another.
Of course nothing works as planned, but everything meshes within this new extended family, giving peace, happiness and a higher level of independence than each resident enjoyed in the nursing home.
Kleiner's view of aging is refreshing and his whimsical style causes the reader to confront common prejudices toward the old. Don't worry, this is not a PC book on aging, just a very good one.
Reviewed by TONI WILLIAMS
FIRST, BODY. By Melanie Rae Thon. Houghton Mifflin. $21.95.
These nine stories embody state-of-the-art short fiction, but they're not for the faint- or light-hearted reader. A young girl hitching in the rain, spaced-out prostitutes breaking into and violating a suburban home, an ex-con finding a dead girl on the street - these are the characters and events Thon explores with an unflinching eye. Their voices are so lucid and distinct that the reader comes away with an understanding of, even a respect for, their lives of inevitable self-destruction.
In the title story, which appeared in ``The Best American Short Stories 1995,'' a troubled Vietnam vet working in a hospital attempts to treat an obese female corpse with dignity. ``Sid thinks they owe her something, a life instead of a shove, some trace of respect. He won't prod. He isn't going to call another orderly for help, isn't going to subject Gloria Luby to one more joke.'' The results are disastrous, but the impression, like the images in each story, is undeniably vivid and penetrating.
LYNN ECKMAN-teaches English as a second language for the Office of Immigration and Refugee Services.
SUSAN TRENT-lives in Roanoke.
LARRY SHIELD-trains horses and dogs in Franklin County.
TONI WILLIAMS-writes from her home near Natural Bridge.
LENGTH: Long : 199 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Atwood, Patterson.by CNB