Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

someone at the halfway mark.” True enough. The somewhat rueful, middle-aged perspective presented in
Moons
, with apt phrasings like “what you are living is your life” and the wise, wondering, feeling concentration on moments of transformation,revealed Munro creating her most wrenching and evocative stories yet. Each of the two bonanzas McGrath enjoyed at the
New Yorker
resulted in an especially strong collection and touched off something of a Munro renaissance. The
Moons
stories gave way to those that made up
The Progress of Love
, certainly her best collection thus far and, perhaps, her best collection overall. Reading one of its stories one night during the summer of 1984, Virginia Barber made her husband put down his own manuscript and read Munro’s story. They both agreed on its beauty, and as she closed her letter Barber asked, “Have you thought about what a terrible threat to illiteracy you are?”
    The reception
Moons
got outside of Canada confirmed that by 1983 Munro’s reputation abroad was reaching a level equivalent to that she had enjoyed at home since the early 1970s. A Canadian Press story that followed her visit to Boston to read at Bentley College in May showed the folks at home noticing how she was doing. Beginning “Alice Munro’s mind flutters freely, remembering odd places and people – especially bigots and the not-so-good old days,” the story captures Munro and her career just then and here, her subject and problems in Huron County. Nonetheless, it continues, “Peers have ranked her among the finest short-story writers in the English language. But writing is a never-ending struggle, the Canadian author says. Her latest book, The Moons of Jupiter, has won exceptional praise from book reviewers in the United States since it was published in February.” Later, before quoting from several U.S. reviews by “heavy hitters,” it reported that
Moons
“has sold well in the U.S., considering that the market for short stories is generally limited, a spokesman for Knopf said. Sales have passed the 10,000 mark. ‘For short stories, that is absolutely wonderful,’ the spokesman added.” Knopf has by then taken the book into a fourth printing. Another profile, originally in the
Boston Globe
but reprinted in Canada, has Munro saying that she is “ ‘surprised to be on the front page of the New York Times’ and that ‘Everyone has been incredibly kind.’ ” Summing her up, the reporter asserts that “she’s no longer obsessed with being a writer of the first rank. She continues to produce stories, writing with many false starts, trashing a great deal of what she’s produced before she gets what she wants.”
    Knopf had indeed done much better with
Moons
than they had with
The Beggar Maid
. In mid-October Close wrote Munro that she did not think sales would drop below 10,000: “Really in sales and certainly in reviews [it is] a major success. I can hardly wait for the next go round.” By the time
Moons
went into paperback, Close recalls, sales of the hardback had almost reached 11,000 (of the 12,500 printed). But because Knopf’s intention, with Munro, had been to introduce her work to a U.S. audience as a “writer of distinction,” sales were not their prime concern with either book. Knopf had long been, and continued to be, a literary house committed to her as an author who should be respected and allowed as much as possible to write and publish the way she wanted to. Knopf was, in effect, a book-publishing equivalent of the
New Yorker
. When
The Beggar Maid
sold just under 4,000 copies, Close recalls, no one at Knopf was “upset by that sale, or disappointed.” Even though Munro’s $15,000 advance was thought at the time to be quite high for a book of stories, its sale was considered good for a first try. But when
Moons
sold almost three times as many copies, Close and her colleagues could see that Munro was finding an audience in the United States, one that could certainly grow. 16
    Virginia Barber’s reaction to the sales of
The Beggar Maid
is another matter. “Enclosed is the unappetizing royalty statement from Knopf,” she wrote to Munro as she passed it on in August 1980. “Hard to believe how few people read good books.” The March 1981 statement showed royalties earned against the advance of just over $4,000, probably in the range of what Munro was then getting for a single story in the
New Yorker
. Barber added, “However, do not worry. Your audience here