Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives by Robert Thacker

Abstract

B o o k R e v i e w s Alice M unro: W riting Her Lives. By Robert Thacker. Toronto: Douglas Gibson/McClelland and Stewart, 2005. 603 pages, Can$39.99. Reviewed by D oug Werden West Texas A&M University, Canyon Robert Thacker’s biography of Alice Munro is the manifestation of a passion for Munro’s stories that captivated Thacker for more than thirty years. In read­ ing the book, it becomes difficult to determine what is most impressive: the fact that Thacker undertook the challenge of producing the biography of a living author or that he wrote such a thoroughly researched and beautiful account of her life as to give us what will surely become the authoritative literary biog­ raphy of Munro. As exemplified in the best biographies, Thacker’s gracious prose moves between archival sources and interviews so well that you are left appreciating the depth of research as well as the craft. Because Munro’s daughter, Sheila Munro, has explored the personal side of her mother in the memoir Lives ofMothers and Daughters: Growing Up with Alice Anne Langton. INTERIOR OF JO H N 'S HOUSE [LOOKING SOUTH], 1837. Graphite on cream wove paper. 18cm x 23.5 cm. Archives of Ontario. b o o k R e v ie w s 4 3 7 Munro (2001), Thacker focuses on Munro’s writing and publishing life, relying on the author’s archived papers, her correspondence, and local newspapers. In particular, he includes important information about the writers who encour­ aged her, agents who guided her, and editors who shaped her books. Although he read early drafts of many stories to prepare the biography, Thacker does not burden the reader with details of revision but summarizes key author/editor interchanges in order to illuminate the ways these conversations impacted Munro’s work. Given that his focus is on her professional life, Thacker resists the temptation to research or speculate about her private decisions. He briefly mentions Munro’s marital problems and fights at home but does not examine them closely. When he discusses her divorce in 1973, he does so in order to explain her motivation for moving from Victoria, British Columbia, to south­ ern Ontario, focusing on her relationship to place rather than to her husband. As many know, Munro spent twenty-three years (1949-1973) living in Vancouver and Victoria, where she published her first two books as well as many of her short stories. Thacker suggests place matters deeply to Munro and informs much of her prose. She says of her short fiction, “When I first started writing, setting meant more to me than people. This was really what I was writ­ ing about. ... I was just overwhelmed by a place” (158). Thacker’s attention to geography reveals her effort to consciously construct fictional places, resulting in settings that rival William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County in their depth and complexity and bring rural and small-town Ontario to life. Munro is often quoted as saying that in her fiction “there is always a start­ ing point in reality” (529). However, Thacker avoids heavy-handed biographi­ cal interpretations, preferring to suggest possibilities and explore potential influences. He does not offer authoritative readings as much as provide scholars with new contexts for rereading Munro’s stories. The biography celebrates the intersection of Munro’s life and writings without making tired claims of reading her life through her fiction or reading her fiction through her life. While Thacker’s biography is intended for scholars exploring the nuances of her work, it is so well written that the non-scholar can easily gain insight into Munro’s work. A t a time when the short story gamers less and less of the public’s attention, Thacker’s work reminds us of the importance of the genre in defining who we are and how we live and the contribition Munro has made to both sides of the border and beyond. ...