Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up with Alice Munro
by Sheila Munro
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Description
“So much of what I think I know – and I think I know more about my mother’s life than almost any daughter could know – is refracted through the prism of her writing. Such is the power of her fiction that sometimes it even feels as though I’m living inside an Alice Munro story.” The millions of people around the world who read Alice Munro’s work are enthralled by her insight into the human heart. Consider, then, what it would be like to have a mother who was so all-knowing. show more Worse, if that mother were world-famous as you were growing up and trying to make your own way as a writer, while you yourself followed in her footsteps, raising a family and trying to write on the side. That is Sheila Munro’s dilemma, and it gives this book special fascination for anyone interested in their own relationship with their own mother, or their own daughter. This book is, in effect, an intimate, affectionate biography of Alice Munro. It describes in a way that only a close relative could, the details of the family background. We follow the family history from the Laidlaws who left Scotland in the early 19th century, to Alice Munro’s birth in 1931, her early years and marriage all the way to the current family, including Alice Munro’s grandchildren. One of the many fascinations of the book is that faithful readers of Alice’s work – and are there any other kind? – will find constant echoes of settings, situations, and characters that occur in her fiction. So this book is not only a fascinating biography of Alice Munro, it also provides an informative commentary to the stories we all know. But Sheila Munro goes further. As a writer growing up in the shadow of a writing mother, she’s able to write frankly and personally about being a daughter and about being a writer. With the publication of this book – richly embellished with scores of family photographs – Sheila Munro has established herself as a skilled and successful author in her own right. • Includes dozens of fascinating Munro family snapshots scattered throughout the text • Full of real-life details that will fascinate any Alice Munro fan show lessTags
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Member Reviews
An interesting read, although far more of a biography of Alice Munro than the memoirs of her daughter. Unfortunately, I think Sheila Munro was too close to the source to write a biography that went deep enough and I'm going to need to go elsewhere for more on what Alice Munro is really all about. The bits about Vancouver and Victoria were great though - especially regarding Munro's Books.
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Author Information
4 Works 78 Members
Sheila Munro is the eldest daughter of Jim and Alice Munro
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up with Alice Munro
- Original publication date
- 2001
- People/Characters
- Alice Munro
- Epigraph
- Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-Success in Ciruit lies. Too bright for our infirm Delight, The Truth's superb surprise. As Lightning to the Children ease, With explanation kind, The Truth must dazzle gradually, or ever... (show all)y man be blind-
Emily Dickinson - Dedication
- For my mother and father
- First words
- I am looking at photographs of my parents taken in the early fifties soon after they were married, small balck-and-white photographs taped onto the pages of a tattered green fifities photo album.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)At least I hadn't missed it.
Classifications
- Genres
- Biography & Memoir, Fiction and Literature, Literature Studies and Criticism
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PR9199.3 .M8 .Z76 — Language and Literature English English Literature English literature: Provincial, local, etc.
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 69
- Popularity
- 453,546
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.63)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 4
