Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

speeches that Munro and Fremlin saw at the King’s Domain in Sydney, is one of only a few completed Munro stories Barber has not managed to sell. “Monsieur” was bought and published by
Grand Street
after which it was selected by Raymond Carver for
Best American Stories 1986
(he wrote that “for some years, [Munro’s] been quietly writing some of the best short fiction in the world”). The
New Yorker
editors did pretty much the same thing with the next three stories that they received late in the summer – “Eskimo,” “Fits,” and “Lichen” – rejecting “Eskimo” (“it seems somewhat cryptic and inaccessible”) and encouraging a revision of “Fits.” (“Eskimo” went to
GQ-Gentleman’s Quarterly
– while Munro revised “Fits” twice to no avail. It also went into
Grand Street
after other magazines had passed.)
    Just after he sent these back, McGrath received and immediately bought “Miles City, Montana.” It caused a stir at the magazine, as Barber reported to Munro, apparently paraphrasing what McGrath hadsaid to her: “The
New Yorker
is beside itself over ‘Miles City.’ One of the best you’ve ever written. Wonderful to see your experiments with technique, form – you’re pushing the traditional limits of the short story. No one else is writing stories like yours.”
    It was this run of stories – seven since July – that prompted McGrath’s remark about feeling like Rilke’s editor. In that October 15 letter, he enclosed his edited manuscript of “Lichen.” He was “querying or toning down some of the crotch imagery” and asking for a specific change: “The real magic of this story, it seems to me, is the way it earns and then miraculously effects that transformation of pubic hair into lichen, but I think it should happen effortlessly and almost invisibly – as it does in the photograph – and without the additional reference to the rat between Dina’s legs.” McGrath did not win this point – the rat stayed – but he recognized that with these descriptions Munro “had broken new ground at the
New Yorker
which has never before referred or alluded to crotch shots. Mr. Shawn said, ‘The central image gave me misgivings, but the writer has earned the right to use it.’ ” Laughing about this exchange, Barber wrote to Munro, “So, you’ve a dirty mind, Alice Munro, but it’s a
talented
dirty mind and that’s O.K.” 20
    When she wrote Munro describing the
New Yorker
reaction to “Miles City, Montana,” Barber noted that they were just one story away from the magazine’s bonus. Her strategy was to hold back “ ‘Progress of Love’ until they cool off up there. They’re so dazzled by ‘Miles City’ that they can’t be trusted to read for awhile.” Her instincts were right. Just after Christmas McGrath wrote to Munro that “Ginger doesn’t seem to be in the office today, so for once I get to pass along the good news: Everyone here was just delighted with
The Progress of Love
. It’s a wonderful, brilliant story, and we’re pleased to have it.” This was less than two weeks after he wrote to Barber that Munro “is simply one of the finest short story writers alive and it’s a great honor and privilege for us to be able to publish her.” The word about “The Progress of Love” was spreading farther afield, since Close reported a conversation she had had with
New Yorker
fiction editor Fran Kiernan who was “just ecstatic about” it. These two stories, particularly, garnered the strongest reaction at the
New Yorker
. Before he had seen “Progress,” McGrathwrote to Munro that “Miles City” was his favourite of the group “because the writing is impeccable.” For her part, Munro told Barber that it was her favourite too, though doubtless she would not have described it as “impeccable” writing. Munro probably would have said that it was “all right.”
    After “Progress” Munro’s success rate with the
New Yorker
dropped off since the magazine saw four more stories plus two revisions (a second of “Fits” and one of “Circle of Prayer”) but bought only one, “White Dump.” Rejecting “Jesse and Meribeth” in February 1985, McGrath explained to Barber their specific problems with the story: “Though it’s all handled with subtlety and dispatch, we couldn’t help feeling that the substance of the story never really measured up to her skill in presenting it. Or perhaps another, simpler way to put it all is that we’ve