The Alice Munro Substack Virtual Memorial
June tributes from readers and writers, with a July update
July 9, 2024 Update
Two days ago, Andrea Skinner — youngest daughter of Alice and James Munro — revealed publicly what the family had known for decades: that Alice Munro’s second husband had abused Andrea as a child, and Alice Munro stayed with him when her daughter told her the truth 16 years later. Skinner published her story in The Toronto Star on Sunday. A contributor to this memorial,
, brought the news to my attention Monday evening. (Thank you, Abra.)This raises a question: Alter this memorial? Take it down?
Beyond the addition of this headnote and links to relevant articles, this memorial will remain unchanged. Here’s why.
Some time in the late 1980s or 1990ish, I read Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1978). Like many who read the book, I neither laughed at nor forgot the opening scene. In it, a Czech official stands on a balcony beside a Communist leader during the Russian takeover of Bohemia in 1948. Four years later, when the local official is executed by the Communist regime, history books erase him from photographs of that day. The message stuck hard with me: Authoritarian regimes erase inconvenient histories. It is an essential act of maturity to receive new truths without denying past experience.
The admiration that many of us had for Alice Munro on June 17, 2024, remains a fact of history. Andrea Skinner’s abuse, made public July 7, is also a fact of history. These two things coexist. Individual contributors to this memorial are free to make their choices about what they wrote. If I am aware of any new posts from memorial participants, I will link them beside the original below. It is a good thing when people come together to honor what is honorable in others, even when those qualities are not the whole story.
The best news is that Skinner’s siblings have gathered around her in support while she tells her long-suppressed story. Also, that she is the one telling her story, in exactly her way. No one else. It is right that the story became public at her initiative, in her words.
You may find more coverage at links below. (Some articles are behind a paywall. The Toronto Star has extensive coverage and commentary, some for subscribers only. If you do not subscribe, you may be able to access the Toronto Star through a local university or public library. I recommend reading Andrea Skinner’s story in her own words.)
Toronto Star July 8-9 update on literary reactions (no paywall)
You may find more coverage from your news outlet of choice. Many journals by now are covering the story.
Added July 10: Two Substack writers who’ve grappled differently with the report of abuse are Brandon at , in the very personal “what i’m doing about alice munro,” and Leah McLaren at in “ ‘Alice has a lot to answer for’: on sexism, selfishness, and contempt for female genius” (partially paywalled but available for free by request).
I’ve placed a different headnote on my interview with biographer Robert Thacker.
With deep respect for all our stories,
Tara
The Alice Munro Substack Virtual Memorial
June 17, 2024
For the last few weeks, I’ve been honoring the long career of Canadian short story writer Alice Munro (1931-2024), who died in Ontario last month. Today’s post closes this series on Munro with a compilation of tributes from fellow Substack writers.
Whether you have never read Alice Munro, had her foisted on you in school and wondered what the teacher was going on about, or have felt your life strengthened by her insight for decades, there is something in this collection for you.
(If you saw this post on Substack over the weekend, there is a new organization, a new portrait mid-page, and one additional Note among the In Briefs.)
Who was Alice Munro?
Munro published short stories for more than sixty years between selling her first story to CBC Radio and publishing her last new book, Dear Life, in 2012. Born July 10, 1931, in Wingham, Ontario, to a schoolteacher and a fox and mink farmer, she eventually wrote 14 original books and dozens of radio and magazine stories. She won numerous literary prizes, from the Canadian Governor General’s Award for Fiction for her first book (1968) to the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013.
More important than prizes, she left indelible images with countless readers.
Last Thursday, Substack writers and Munro’s biographer, Robert Thacker, created a virtual memorial to honor the author’s life one month after her death on May 13. We exchanged words on our pages, collated below.
In lieu of signing a guest book, look for the Like button at the bottom of the page. Be careful if this is your second visit to the post. Two Likes make an Unlike. Just one Like will do. ;-) Comments are most welcome!
I hope you will feel refreshed, enlightened, and inspired by our memorial collaboration.
Tributes received June 13-16, 2024:
Never Heard of Munro? First-Time Readers Say:
“Tribute to Alice Munro” (Note), by
. “I loved it because it was a novel disguised as a short story” & “I left the story convinced Edith will become a great writer.” Story focus: “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.”
“The Secret Lives of Canadians: Reading Alice Munro for the First Time,” by
. “[A]s soon as we realize that these people are guilty of things they cannot fully admit about themselves—sometimes actions, but often simply emotions, antipathies, desires—it starts to dawn on us that we are no different.” Focus on the book Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You (1974).
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Maybe You Read Her Once But — Meh? Rereadings:
“On Seeing Shades of Grey; Unlocking Alice Munro after 40 years,” by
. “Where in my earlier years of reading Munro, “nothing seemed to happen” … , now I see everything is happening all at once. There is something so ordinary and yet extraordinary, relatable and yet fantastical, proper and yet scandalous in each of her stories.” Focus on the book Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014.Kim also wrote “Family Secrets; The Staggering Silence and Alice Munro’s Legacy Seen” (Added July 11, 2024).
“What’s So Great about Alice Munro?” by
. “Munro … draw[s] readers into a deep state of emotional recognition in story after story, book after book.” Brief references to multiple stories + “Free Radicals” (2008).
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“You Feel You are a Different Person When You Finish It”
— Alice Munro, Nobel Prize Interview, 2013
A Wider Canadian Literature
“Alice Munro, CanLit, and Double Consciousness,” by
. “I am trying to internalize this lesson. To write my reality because of the mess and humanity, not in spite of it. I am trying to widen what CanLit means so that there is room for stories like mine within it too.”
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Rendering Lives Visible
“My Tribute to Alice Munro,” by
. “I recognize the dynamics in my own relationship to my mother in these works. … I remembered an incident from my life that feels like something out of a Munro story. For my prom, my mother and I had split the cost of a beaded satin vintage gown I found at a secondhand shop.” (Includes a link to Munro’s Nobel Prize interview.)
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Empathy & Appreciation
. “[N]o matter how we might behave and what we might say, deep down we all want the same thing: love, peace and connection. And when we understand this, we can’t help but have empathy and compassion for everyone.” Story focus: “Dimension.”
“About the Goddess: What to Love in Alice Munro’s Short Stories,” by
. “The smaller moments … tend to remain.” Examples from “Lichen” (1985).
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Frank about Bodies
. “Our narrator used to believe that women came to see her father in the evenings for ‘vitamin shots.’ But now that she is an adult living in his home, she learns that he provides abortions.” Story focus: “Before the Change.” Also references Lives of Girls and Women.
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Teaching Munro
“Seven Stories by Alice Munro Briefly Discussed for the Memorial,” by
. “Rejection, misunderstanding are part of the process. Don’t give up. Look for a teacher who understands the difficult and weighty task of teaching and mentoring.” Link to “Before the Change” (1998), about “secrets that plague us.”
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Learning from Munro
“The Long Story Short of Alice Munro,” by
. “The character I most enjoy getting to know — the central character in many of the stories, is Alice herself. She’s warm yet reticent, with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor.” & “[I]t’s likely that there are other writers like Alice Munro. Writers who don’t think they have the time or skills to write a novel; writers with a keen eye for what makes us human and an ear for a good story …”
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Short (Short) Fiction in Honor of Munro
. “ ‘I don’t know how to do it,’ Alice thought, as she looked down at the fabric in her lap.” A short short story.. “[W]hen people forgot their belonging, they began to do horrible things to us. It’s galling how tightly bound our very existence is to theirs.”
In Brief
shared this memory in Substack Notes along with the original portrait seen above:I bought my first Alice Munro story collection over 25 years ago, shortly before I applied for graduate school in creative writing. I was a woman with literary dreams and a young daughter, and Munro’s stories of the lives of women and girls made me feel understood and empowered.
In a video interview that I watched as I painted this gouache portrait, Munro was asked how her environment inspired her. She said she didn’t need inspiration because she thought stories were so important in the world. I love the clarity, the confidence, and the reminder that this is true.
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shared this quotation, attributed to Munro:'I can't play bridge. I don't play tennis. All these things people learn, and I admire, there hasn't seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out of the window.'
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shared this memory in Substack Notes:I arrived in Toronto in 1979 as a new immigrant from Europe and was still there when the book “The Moons of Jupiter” was published in 1982. The one short story in the book, from which the book got its title, took place in Toronto. Canada (and North America by extension) looked strange to me at that time. My European “facts” did not fit the North American facts. The story itself is about the changing nature of facts.
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Books by Alice Munro — with Tribute Links
Any link from above that focuses (chiefly) on a single story or book appears again below with that book. Use this list to help you choose which book sparks your interest.
Dance of the Happy Shades (1968)
Lives of Girls and Women (1971)
Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You (1974)
“The Secret Lives of Canadians: Reading Alice Munro for the First Time,” by
. “[A]s soon as we realize that these people are guilty of things they cannot fully admit about themselves—sometimes actions, but often simply emotions, antipathies, desires—it starts to dawn on us that we are no different.”
Who Do You Think You Are? (Canadian title) / The Beggar Maid (U.S. title) (1977)
The Moons of Jupiter (1982)
: “The [title] story itself is about the changing nature of facts.”
The Progress of Love (1986)
“About the Goddess: What to Love in Alice Munro’s Short Stories,” by
. “The smaller moments … tend to remain.” Examples from “Lichen” (1985).
Friend of My Youth (1990)
Open Secrets (1994)
The Love of a Good Woman (1998)
. “Our narrator used to believe that women came to see her father in the evenings for ‘vitamin shots.’ But now that she is an adult living in his home, she learns that he provides abortions.” Story focus: “Before the Change.” Also references Lives of Girls and Women.
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001)
“Tribute to Alice Munro” (Note), by
. “I loved it because it was a novel disguised as a short story” & “I left the story convinced Edith will become a great writer.” Story focus: “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.”
Runaway (2004)
“My Tribute to Alice Munro,” by
. “In this title story from her 2004 collection, the main character follows an arc more similar to my mother’s than mine.”
The View from Castle Rock (2006)
Robert Thacker’s latest book, Alice Munro’s Late Style (Bloomsbury, 2023), offers close readings of The View from Castle Rock, Too Much Happiness, and Dear Life.
Too Much Happiness (2009)
. “[N]o matter how we might behave and what we might say, deep down we all want the same thing: love, peace and connection. And when we understand this, we can’t help but have empathy and compassion for everyone.” Story focus: “Dimension.”
“What’s So Great about Alice Munro?” by
. “Munro … draw[s] readers into a deep state of emotional recognition in story after story, book after book.” Brief references to multiple stories + “Free Radicals” (2008).
Dear Life (2012)
“My Tribute to Alice Munro,” by
. “I recognize the dynamics in my own relationship to my mother in these works.”
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More about Munro
“Becoming the Writer She Wanted to Be: An Interview with Alice Munro Biographer Robert Thacker,” by
and Robert Thacker. Thacker: “She has this facility for writing prose that gets at what it feels like to be alive.” - Quiet Reading subscribers received this post June 13.“Alice Munro: Canada’s First Nobel Laureate in Literature,” by Robert Thacker. 19 slides with highlights and photos from Munro’s life.
“She Wrote a Classic in the Laundry Room,” by
. “Through the 1950s and ‘60s, while housekeeping and caring for two daughters, then three, the former Miss Laidlaw wrote stories.” - Quiet Reading subscribers received this post on June 4.
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Coda
has been chastened but not deterred in the creation of this memorial by an opinion articulated in “Comfort” (Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage):“Lewis had said to her, ‘Be sure you scotch it if they want to bugger around with any memorial stuff. That candy-ass is capable of it.’”
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Many thanks to the participants and the many well-wishers who have spread (and continue to spread) the word about this event! It has been a privilege to work with all of you.
Saving this to go through properly and go to the articles — I love the whole concept and what a fitting tribute!
This is a really wonderful way to bring people together ☺️☺️☺️ lovey work, Tara!
So cool to see the curated list. Excited to dig into what other's have to say, and I loved your post earlier this week, Tara.