Now Streaming: Alias Grace

The Handmaiden’s Tale wasn’t Margaret Atwood’s only novel. Netflix has just released a miniseries based on another of Atwood’s works: Alias Grace. Here’s the trailer:

Alias Grace tells the story of Grace Marks, “a 19th-century Irish immigrant and servant who became a celebrity ‘murderess’ in Toronto.” The story confronts 19th century issues of “anti-immigrant sentiment, abortion and class warfare” — things that seem scarily modern today. Indeed, the writer who adapated Atwood’s novel for the small screen wrote of the lead character’s “harsh crossing from Ireland with recent migrant crises in mind.”

Atwood herself sees the work as a cautionary tale: “We are at a moment in history when some parts of North America are trying to turn the clock back, and if they want to turn it back, what do they want to turn it back to?”

-KitJ