The Russian lawyer and biographer Alice Gray pose to the world a different view of herself in her new book. In The Nationality of an Infant, Alice Gray claims to have uncovered many truths about herself that help explain her sudden departure from England and subsequent murder of an American businessman in Santa Monica. This crime occurred as Alice was preparing to launch a new book in the United States, but instead of continuing her project, she went to Russia to write it. Once there, she claimed that she learned of the death of her husband, Maximoff, and this led to a feeling of guilt that she was ruining his memory by continuing on with her life and writing. After she returned to England, however, she realized that Maximoff would never have wanted her to go to Russia if he had wished her to stay, so she left behind a letter that explained why she had left.
After learning that she was not British despite her Russian accent, Alice was equally confused about her nationality. Her American passport, however, gave no information as to her nationality or height, so she assumed that she was German. When Russian investigators told her that her real name was Alice Gray and not German, she decided to change her name. According to The Nationality of an Infant, her real father’s original name was Peter Joseph Grigori, which was how he became known as Alice in Russia. He worked as a journalist in Germany, and it was only later that he decided to change his name.
While Alice was growing up, she had always been curious about her origins and that is where the mystery of her nationality and height comes from. While looking at old photographs in her grandmother’s library, she found a picture that matched her exact height and complexion, and this led her to believe that she might be British. In The Nationality of an Infant, she writes about how as a child she had tried to understand her true heritage, but had not been able to come up with a firm answer. Now that she has discovered her true birth and identity, she hopes that sharing this information with the world will help her move forward in her career and in her life as a whole.