Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

as imitation of something she had read, the
Wuthering Heights
novel real and compelling, her own version written and imagined during those years. At that time too Munro was writing poetry and even submitted poems to
Chatelaine
, the Canadian women’s magazine, during 1945–46 – mercifully, she says now, none were ever published; “they all came back,” Munro has said, “and a good thing too. They were pretty bad.”
    The effects of this were evident to all who knew her. As Munro has said, by the time she was fourteen she was “totally serious” about her writing. The year before, she had Audrey Boe for Grade 10 English, and she had her again in Grade 11. Boe, who was from Toronto and a graduate of the University of Toronto, had come to Wingham to teach in the fall of 1943; she subsequently married a man who worked in the foundry office, stopped teaching, and raised a family in Wingham. Over the years she kept track of Munro’s career and describes herself as her “first fan.” Boe gave writing assignments in her classes and, once they were handed in, she would read the best ones to the class. Munro’s were always read and they were always singular. Even though she wrote about “the normal things of everyday,” Mary Ross remembers, they were quite different from, and far more accomplished than, what other students wrote. They were of a different level altogether, making a commonplace subject interesting. As Munro herself said, as a student of English she “soared beyond all possible requirements.” The other students saw this quality in her; indeed, when Mary Ross came to write her “Prophet’s Address” detailing future expectations for her classmates, she envisioned Alice Laidlaw as a successful writer: “Her greatest short, short novel which had swept her to fame in ’53 was ‘Parkwater’s PassionatePair’ ” and she now ensures the success of a magazine called “Candid Confessions.” (Her name on its cover was spelled “Alys,” Munro’s preferred spelling then.) For their part, many of Wingham’s adults also saw Alice’s potential. Ross describes her father as being particularly sympathetic to Alice since he recognized what a struggle these years had been for her – her family’s economic circumstances, the distance from town, Mrs. Laidlaw’s illness, and Munro’s additional household responsibilities. The Beecrofts, Ross remembers, were of the same mind. 36
    Audrey Boe recalls approaching Munro when she was alone in her Grade 11 classroom and telling her she must find a way to go to university. Others had done the same thing, so by the time she had reached her final high school years Munro knew about scholarships and was aiming at them. At the time, only a very small percentage of graduating students (and few girls) went to university, but Munro’s academic achievements clearly marked her, despite her family’s economic circumstances, as one for whom university was quite possible. There was no question of the family’s financial support – Bob Laidlaw was unable to provide any and, although Aunt Maud and Sadie Laidlaw might have helped, it was understood that they would eventually help Alice’s brother Bill as “the academic star of the family.” They did understand Alice’s going, though, and did not disapprove. They did worry that Alice, who had never had a boyfriend, so far as they knew, would never marry. The general view expressed then was that a young girl would be on her own (or on her way to getting married) once she was eighteen.
    So Munro decided on a plan – the same plan pursued by Del Jordan in
Lives of Girls and Women
– for obtaining scholarships that would take her to university. She hoped she would get into the University of Western Ontario, in London. “These were competitive scholarships, so you had to get the best in a certain category.” Midway through Grade 12, Munro began studying German; it was not offered at her school but the French teacher – Miss MacGregor – agreed to stay after school to tutor her. “I had started it because I could look ahead – I knew what the categories for scholarships were,” and “if I didn’t take three languages other than English, I would have to take a math and I knew I couldn’t get scholarship marks on that. My math teacher agreed.”Thus as she completed Grade 13, Munro wrote the provincial exams in eleven subjects – composition and literature papers in English, French, German, and Latin plus