Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

of a family embarrassment, but Munro also knew that such a status in a place she was comfortable in was better for her work.
    Fearing boredom for Alice in Clinton, Gerry encouraged her to accept invitations to read and to present herself as a writer. Munro readat Western that fall and in February she went on a Canada Council reading tour through the prairies to British Columbia. (Her reading at Simon Fraser University garnered one of the few really grumpy reviews Munro has ever received, in the Vancouver
Sun
, from a reporter dismayed that she had nothing new to read and gave no interviews.) The tour was followed by a visit to Victoria to see Andrea, who was approaching her tenth birthday. Jim was in a new relationship with Carole Sabiston, an artist, who had a son about Andrea’s age. Later that year, when the divorce was final, Jim and Carole married at the house on Rockland. Andrea came to Clinton for the summer, as did Jenny, who found a waitressing job nearby.
    The tension and trouble leading to the breakup of her marriage was now well behind. By the summer of 1976, Munro had settled comfortably into life in Clinton. Walking, gardening, looking after Mrs. Fremlin, Gerry working on renovations to the house, both of them cross-country skiing in winter: “Real life.” Munro was happy with this routine; it felt normal. In April, she and Fremlin told their parents that they had married while on a trip to Ottawa. The story was a saving fiction: the marriage never took place, but it satisfied their parents. By June she was telling Metcalf that the new book was started, though typically she wondered when she would ever get it done. 12
    On June 9, 1976, Munro was in London to receive an honorary degree from her alma mater, the University of Western Ontario. Numerous others have been offered over the years – from such other universities as Manitoba, Queen’s, and Toronto – but Western’s was the only one she has accepted. She became a Doctor of Letters,
honoris causa:
“Here,” its citation ends, “is an Alice who, from everyday experience, has created her own Wonderland, making of it a looking glass through which we begin to identify vital aspects of our world and of ourselves.” The singularity of Munro’s acceptance here illustrates her attitude toward such awards. In 1983, for example, she declined an appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Asked about it, she explained that while she had no problem with awards received for particular books or for her body of work, she was uncomfortable with awards recognizing a person by virtue of celebrity. Having studied andexcelled for two years at Western as an undergraduate, and having served a year as its writer-in-residence, Munro probably felt that its degree was not as honorific as all that, that she had earned it. 13
    Late in June Bob Laidlaw’s heart took a turn for the worse. He was admitted to Victoria hospital in London, where tests were done to see if he was well enough to withstand open-heart surgery. If he had the operation and survived it, his circumstances would have been considerably improved; if not, he would be confined to bed for the rest of his life – the prognosis expected just a few months to a year. He passed the tests and decided to have the operation, but because of the surgeon’s schedule he had to return home for three weeks to await the surgery. It was performed in late July but, right after the operation, he suffered a massive coronary; though he was revived, he never regained consciousness. Alice and her sister, Sheila, were at the hospital throughout the ordeal. Finally, on August 2, at the age of seventy-four, Robert Eric Laidlaw passed away. The funeral was somewhat controversial since Laidlaw had specified that there was to be no minister present; instead, his son, William, read a statement his father had written. In it Laidlaw offered goodbyes and thanks, and politely said how he had always thought Christianity was rather silly. He did not want to give offence, but that was just how it struck him. This was news to many who knew him, and some took it badly.
    Munro had been scheduled to teach at the Banff Centre for the Arts that summer but, owing to her father’s illness and death, went there a week late. Throughout her growing career, Bob Laidlaw had watched her reach new levels of accomplishment, knew the details of her publication, and felt the brunt of whatever local reaction there was to his daughter’s writing.