Netflix Is Adapting Margaret Atwood’s “Alias Grace”

Atwood’s Historical Crime Novel Will Come to the Small Screen

Genre-bending goddess Margaret Atwood is about to be all over your internet TV streaming. Earlier this year Hulu announced it was working to adapt her classic feminist dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, and today news broke that Netflix will adapt Alias Grace as a six part mini-series. (If that wasn’t enough, HBO has been working on an adaptation of her brilliant dystopian MaddAddam Trilogy.)

Atwood’s 1996 novel is based on the real life of Grace Marks, a 19th-century Irish immigrant who was convicted of brutally murdering her employer and his mistress:

In Alias Grace, bestselling author Margaret Atwood has written her most captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying work since The Handmaid’s Tale. She takes us back in time and into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century.

Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.

The miniseries will be produced by Sarah Polley (Looking for Alaska) and directed by Mary Harron (American Psycho). The Hulu adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale will star Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men) and debut next year. For fan’s of Atwood and great TV, things are looking pretty good.