Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

firm got a healthy share of whatever came in after their book version was in print; thus McGraw-Hill (both entities) had a vested interest in whatever deals were made. Taking a portion itself, McGraw-Hill could not look at any prospect strictly from the writer’s point of view. 19
    Munro came to see this slowly, but by the time
Lives
had been published she knew this. After she submitted
Real Life
to Coffin in1970, she watched what Kiil was doing with her work, asked specific questions, and was especially concerned about his plans for U.S. publication. At some point in 1973, she visited Kiil in Toronto to discuss the contractual terms for
Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You
. In August 1973 Kiil sent her the contract for the then-untitled collection. His letter begins with an apology for taking so long to get it to her and, throughout, he is at pains to detail the various things he is doing for her: he had “two firm offers for ‘How I Met My Husband’ and ‘Forgiveness in Families’ ” (both appeared in
McCall’s
before
Something
was published in May 1974). Munro’s stories were then being considered by the
New Yorker, Ms., Redbook, Cosmopolitan, McCall’s
, and
Penthouse
, he reports, and he names all the editors he was dealing with save the person from the
New Yorker
. Kiil also notes that Allen Lane had just bought the U.K. rights to
Dance
, that the New American Library (Signet) edition of
Lives
would be out “no earlier than January 1974,” that the U.S. edition of
Dance
was due soon, and that he was working on “a complete resumé of the rights and royalties” of Munro’s books and he promised “to have it to you shortly. I suspect such an accounting would place things into better perspective for you and all concerned.” Kiil then mentioned the excellent reviews her books had been getting – the U.S. reviews of
Lives
– and the advertising planned in the United States for
Dance
. He ended, “I’m sure there is a lot more that needs discussing, but enough for now.”
    Judging from his rhetoric in this letter, Kiil was trying very hard to secure a contract from an important, and probably hesitant, author. It is both a firm accounting and a rhetorical shaping of the news. The advance against Canadian royalties he mentions in the letter is $2,500 but the advance McGraw-Hill actually paid was twice that, $5,000. More than that, on Munro’s copy of the letter, written in another hand, is the following annotation:
    Before signing
Get
firm
committment for U.S. Edition
Also,
firm
committment for Cnd. Edition
Check out rights on English Edition4. How many copies Dance printed in U.S.?
Is Lives still being flogged?
How many p.b. Dance sold in Can. – have they lots on hand?
Check the 7½ % for 1 st 5,000
Get advance from U.S. edition
Want to approve jacket
When, how many, for Allan Lane Lives? – could you send copy where is the advance?
Where is money for U.S. edition?
    Whoever wrote this – and Munro has no recollection herself, nor have other possibilities been confirmed – had a sound knowledge of publishing and certainly took Munro’s point of view. All these questions were fair ones for Kiil. Once she satisfied herself on these points and doubled the advance, Munro signed another McGraw-Hill Ryerson contract. Yet, as this episode illustrates, her career was quickly moving to the point when she would need a skilled agent. Neither Kiil nor McGraw-Hill Ryerson would prove to be enough. 20
“I Felt As If I Had Retrieved a Lost Part of Myself”: “And So I Went Away and Wrote This Story”
    In January 1974 Robert Fulford published a column in the
Toronto Star
noting the return of the
Tamarack Review
after a break in publication. Commenting initially about “a remarkably high proportion of rascals” among writers, Fulford connects his observation to Hugo Johnson, a writer and a rascal. “Hugo is the latest creation,” he tells us, “of that remarkably talented writer, Alice Munro, and he appears in Material, a story in the new Tamarack Review.” Focusing on Munro’s story at some length, Fulford concludes his discussion by asserting that
    Alice Munro’s story is in itself a marvelously duplicitous and contradictory act. First, it expresses the view of someone whodespises and rejects the literary world – and yet it is written from within that same world, the world of books, stories, prizes, grants that Alice Munro inhabits. It is, among other things, an attack on literary