Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

of
Real Life
in an advisory capacity.” Munro replied with some questions on the sixteenth, and Kiil wrote again to her regarding American editions of both
Real Life
and
Dance of the Happy Shades
as well as a Canadian paperback edition of the latter, which was then still available only in the original Ryerson hardcover. Within two weeks he would be going to New York and would there discuss possibilities with his U.S. counterpart. Kiil thought that with
Dance
and the second manuscript in hand “we shall be able to reach a decision on the most effective strategy for guaranteeing you exposure in the U.S.” Munro had asked, given her previous experience, about the standard “option on the next manuscript clause.” Kiil assured her that they did not hold it as binding; in any case, he was “prepared to write an addendum or rider to the contract releasing” her from it. He continued, “As you requested, I am rushing your manuscript to you by registered mail in order that you may finalize it to your satisfaction. I am anxious to see the final form and present it to New York and to Simon & Schuster,” a potential mass-market paperback publisher. It is notable that Munro was here negotiating on her own behalf and was, without an agent, largely dependent on Kiil as her publisher. His responsibility, clearly, was to McGraw-Hill Ryerson more than to his author. Just over ten years later,when a question arose over rights to
Lives of Girls and Women
, Virginia Barber wrote to the lawyer charged with sorting the matter out and mournfully commented that on the master contract under advance it read “none requested.”
    The evidence in the Alice Munro collection in Calgary allows a detailed examination of the textual progress of the manuscript Munro submitted to Audrey Coffin in December 1970. While this is not the place for a complete account, some details are notable. Munro’s copy of her own typed version (which she probably gave to her typist) is there, as is the professionally typed and lightly copy-edited manuscript, which, smudged throughout, was used by the printer. There are inserts and other changes, some in Munro’s hand, so it is likely that once Coffin had copy-edited the manuscript she sent it to Munro for her approval. That may indeed have been the version to which Kiil referred in late March. There are revised sections and other changes throughout the manuscript, but the epilogue – for a time Munro wanted it to be untitled and to use roman numerals as page numbers – continued to get the most attention. Munro held up production and was revising in proof. She remembers as much, as did Kiil. Bobby Sherriff’s pirouette was inserted at this stage, since no manuscript version of it exists though the rest of the section is largely complete. Sometime between late March and the announcement of publication, the title was changed to
Lives of Girls and Women
since W.W. Norton in New York had recently announced a forthcoming novel by Deborah Pease titled
Real Life
. Kiil and Munro also agreed that the book would be called a novel. For his part, of course, a novel was what he wanted to sell. For hers, Munro knew that while it was not the conventional novel she had begun and later abandoned, the final result was in fact, as she wrote to Coffin, “part way between a novel and a series of long stories.” Its epilogue finally completed, the Canadian edition of
Lives of Girls and Women
was published in October 1971. 42
    Positive responses were quick to appear. In the
Globe and Mail
in one of the earliest reviews to be published, Phyllis Grosskurth wrote that it is “a joy … to be able to proclaim that Lives of Girls and Womenis a delight, a wonder, a blessing devoutly to be thankful for.” “It’s a familiar kind of book,” Kildare Dobbs reported the same day in the
Toronto Star
, “the story of a girl growing up in small-town Canada, narrated with good humor in the first person.” Dobbs, who misspells Munro’s name “Monro” throughout, struck a note seen in other reviews by detecting apt parallels between
Lives
and Laurence’s
A Bird in the House
published the year before. He also paid special attention to Del’s mother, “a woman of tremendous energy and lively intelligence who goes out selling encyclopedias because she believes in them. It’s her wish that Del make her own life and not wreck it for some man.” Joan Coldwell in the
Victoria Daily Times
wrote that “what is extraordinary is the