Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

Cook Street – they bought the final house they lived in together, at 1648 Rockland Avenue, during the summer of 1966 when she was pregnant with Andrea – shecompleted just two stories, “Boys and Girls” and “Red Dress – 1946.” Both were published in the
Montrealer
. Although the correspondence between Munro and Toppings during these years is not complete, surviving letters suggest what happened. In October 1965 Munro reports on a long-anticipated visit to their store by Ryerson sales representatives, writing that “The Men from Ryerson were in – Jim’s feelings were considerably soothed – We just wanted somebody from Ryerson to know we’re here.” Turning to the
Modern Canadian Stories
anthology Toppings was working on, she hopes “it comes off.” She agrees with Toppings that it would be better to include a story not already in an anthology, so she points to “Dance of the Happy Shades,” “Boys and Girls,” and “Red Dress – 1946.” The latter story is one “which I like but everybody else thinks plain frivolous.… You – or somebody – must decide which to suggest. I sort of hate them all, once they’re written, for being so much less than they were supposed to be.” She signs off, “Yes, I’m still writing.” Toppings replies at once with an explanation of how
Modern Canadian Stories
is coming together – the academic editor has the final say – and so while other stories have proponents, “in the end, … we may end up with
The Time of Death
. I think it is the strongest story you’ve written.” As already noted, they made that choice. 18
    Ryerson’s publication of
Dance of the Happy Shades
began to come together in early 1967. In February Munro replies to Toppings, “I’m so sorry – nothing new. Just those – Red Dress is the last story I’ve done.” She notes that he hasn’t mentioned “The Office” and offers to find it for him, something she subsequently did. “I had a baby last fall and with her and helping Jim in the store have been terribly busy, though I’ve started (again!) a novel, which is light & easy & may get finished if I ever get time.”

    Andrea Sarah Munro was born on September 8, 1966. Her arrival coincided with changes in the Munro family’s life in Victoria and occasioned some others as well – given the over nine-year age difference between Jenny and Andrea. The month before, the Munros had moved into their new house on Rockland Avenue, a twelve-room Tudor-styleplace that had been priced to sell. Munro has said that they were able to afford to buy it for a bargain price but could not afford to heat it. She hated it from the outset; it was a place that Jim and Sheila, then almost thirteen, wanted. She told Catherine Ross, “Once we moved to that house, which we did against my will when I was eight months pregnant, something happened right then. Something pulled apart.” Sometime during the 1970s, Munro worked on a story that, clearly, drew on the acquisition of the house. Once they had some money, the narrator writes, her husband “bought the sort of house which apparently he had been seeking all along – a brick and Tudor-beamed affair set among great lawns and expansive trees, and this house had to be filled with sofas and chairs upholstered in crushed velvet, with a fake suit of armour for the hall, and pictures of stormy seas with little lights over them, and a chandelier which was a copy of one hanging in some castle in England, in some baronial dining hall I never want to see. When I was moved into that house I knew it was not to stay, though I stayed longer than I would have thought, and longer than I should have.” 19
    Munro’s letter to Toppings in February 1967 saying that she had again started a novel as he is rekindling the idea of a collection of Munro’s stories both demonstrates her commitment to her writing and obscures the facts of her life just then. Munro ends by saying that “your letter has me very curious. I wish I’d done some stories.” Toppings had obviously written asking after new material. When he replies on March 3 he emphasizes that he “is trying to rekindle a project here” and then asks for the copy of “The Office,” “the one story we’re missing.” He is hopeful but unable to be specific. “Two other editors here, recent additions, have read your stories and are very high on them: joyously so.”
    Andrea’s birth did allow Munro more time at home, but the years while Andrea was