The appeal of the main character is the primary basis for the popularity of the novel, and Grace Marks was also attractive in real life. As Atwood points out in the Author's Afterword, prisons and asylums in the 1800s "were visited like zoos," and one of the "star attractions" was Grace, who with her long, red-auburn hair and faraway stare must have seemed the epitome of the madwoman, as well as a beautiful and sympathetic figure for those who believed in her innocence. That belief would seem to have been based more on wishful thinking than on reality, though. Grace gave three versions of the killings, all of which implicated her in at least some manner, if only complicity and silence, though her confession in prison was likely forced by a brutal warden. There were those who argued that McDermott was so strong and violent that...