The Tomorrow-Tamer and Other Stories

by Margaret Laurence

The ten stories gathered together in The Tomorrow-Tamer are Margaret Laurence’s first published fiction. Set in raucous and often terrifying Ghana, where shiny Jaguars and modern jazz jostle for eminence against fetish figures, tribal rites, and the unchanging beat of jungle drums, the stories tell of individuals, European and African, trying to come to terms with the frightening world brought about by the country’s new freedom.

With the same compassion and understanding she would bring to her later fiction set in Canada, Laurence succeeds brilliantly in capturing the atmosphere of a continent and of individual men and women struggling for survival under the impact of the wind of change.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Canada, Canadian Literature, Classics, Indigenous, Africa

254 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Canada's classic authoress was born Jean Margaret Wemyss on July 18, 1926 in the prairie town of Neepawa, Manitoba, Canada. Her Mom, Verna, passed away early. Her Aunt Margaret helped her Father take care of her for a year, then they married and had a Son. Their Father died two years afterwards. Aunt Margaret was a Mother to her, raising the kids in theirr maternal Grandfather's home.

Margaret wrote stories in elementary school. Her professional writing career began in 1943 with a job at the town newspaper and continued in 1944, when she entered the Honours English program at Winnipeg's United College (University Of Winnipeg.) After graduating in 1947, she was hired as a reporter for The Winnipeg Citizen. That year, she married Jack Laurence, a civil engineer.

Jack's profession took the couple to England, Somalia, and eventually Ghana, where Margaret gained an appreciation for Africa and the storytelling traditions of its peoples. It was in Africa that their children, Jocelyn and David, were born, and when Margaret began to work seriously on her writing. Her book of essays about and translations of Somali poetry and prose was published in 1954 as A Tree for Poverty. A collection of short stories, The Tomorrow-Tamer, as well as a novel, This Side Jordan (both focusing on African subjects) were published after Margaret returned home to Canada. Her fiction was thereafter concerned with Canadian subjects, but she maintained her interest in African literature and in 1968 published a critical analysis of Nigerian literature, Long Drums and Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists 1952-1966. Present in her African works is a concern with the ethical dilemma of being a white colonialist living in colonial Africa.

In 1957, Margaret and her family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, for five years. In 1962, Margaret & Jack divorced. She moved to London, England for a year, followed by a cottage in Buckinghamshire for ten years, although she visited Canada often. During this period, Margaret wrote her first works with Canadian subject matter.

"The Stone Angel" was published in 1964, and was the first of her "Manawaka novels", the fictional prairie community modelled after her hometown of Neepawa, Manitoba. It was followed by "A Jest Of God" in 1966 (for which she won her first Governor General's Award,) "The Fire-Dwellers" in 1969, and "A Bird In The House" in 1970. Margaret received critical and commercial acclaim in Canada and in 1971, was honoured by being named a Companion to the Order of Canada.

In the early 1970s, she returned to Canada and settled in Lakefield, Ontario. She continued to write and was writer-in-residence at the University Of Toronto, the University Of Western Ontario, and Trent University. In 1974, Margaret completed her final novel, "The Diviners", for which she received the Governor General's Award and the Molson Prize. It was followed by a book of essays, Heart Of A Stranger" in 1976 and several children's books: "Jason's Quest", "The Olden-Days Coat", "Six Darn Cows", and "The Christmas Birthday Story". Her autobiography "Dance On The Earth" was published in 1987.

Margaret died on January 5, 1987 at her home in Lakefield, after learning her lung cancer diagnosis was terminal. She is buried in Neepawa Cemetery, a few metres from the stone angel which inspired her novel.

Reviews

[Cynthia F Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my 'reading rules' is to ask for recommendations from local people when I travel to other countries and that is how Margaret Laurence came into my life. A friend in New Brunswick, Margaret Joe, suggested this quintessentially Canadian author, who seems to have slipped off the reading radar, despite her many awards and widely acknowledged mastery in her day.

After enjoying several of her books, I noticed there were plenty of reviews about the stories set in Canada, but almost none about the books she wrote about West Africa. Those years she spent abroad certainly helped her become a remarkably perceptive writer as you'll see when you read her earlier work.

This 1964 short story collection deserves more reviews, and more readers, because Laurence's cross-cultural wisdom is timeless, deep and wide, and we still need her understandings to lessen the trend towards polarization in our shrinking world. Her time away from Canada definitely increased her awareness of Canadian cultural beliefs and behaviors, once she returned 'home'.
You don't have to travel to West Africa, or be planning to move there, to appreciate the insights in this book. After all, West Africans, Canadians and the rest of us live and work everywhere these days.
This collection contains:
The Drummer of All the World, which explores the changing relationship between the local boy and the white son of the missionary family, who returns years later, as an colonial administrator when the country is gaining independence.
The Perfume Sea has two out-of-place expatriates, a man and a woman, trying to adjust, as politics overtake them and returning 'home' is not an option.
The Merchant of Heaven reveals the shadow side of a naive missionary too eager to save African souls.
The Rain Child focuses upon female protagonists and their differences.
Godman's Master is about the modern challenges of a local oracle.
A Fetish for Love concerns the ju-ju woman, and two girls, Love and Constance.
The Pure Diamond Man shows Tetteh and Daniel and the clashes between them as their cultures change.
The Voices of Adamo introduces us to a man, as he leaves the relative security of the colonial army, without any 'voices' to guide him safely into the uncertainties of the future.
A Gourdful of Glory dips back into the worlds of black and white women.
And the title story, The Tomorrow-Tamer, takes us into the realm of ancestral spirits, modern stresses and the complicated ways 'simple' people try to respond to them.
All these characters are grappling with cultural challenges which ought to concern us all in this global era. Authors who write this well can help us all to tame our tomorrows.

Margaret Laurence (1926-1987) is a well loved Canadian writer who grew up in a Manitoba prairie town and ended up overseas in 1947 after marrying a civil engineer. Seven years in Africa, contributed to the fifteen books and memoir she published. Known for her peace activist work, she also helped to found the Writers' Union of Canada. After being diagnosed with lung cancer, she took her own life in 1987.

[C. (Comment, never msg). · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised “The Stone Angel”, 1964 and its counterparts were preceded by short stories about Africa, while Margaret Laurence and her husband lived there. I hastened to read “The Tomorrow-Tamer”, 1963 next. There is no shortage of fiction about Egypt and the north, nor diamonds and politics of the south. I possessed no concept of West Africa, except that my brother has travelled there. This compilation of Margaret’s overseas magazine articles is a valuable quencher of curiosity. Our author sketched an educational and well-varied tableau.

A few aspects are expected: a primitive, hard-working way of life. It was lamentable to read that the average family expects to bear some children who don’t survive. The unrest of a village on the threshold of progress, a change that doesn’t immediately resemble a blessing, is tangible to the reader. We are additionally dismayed by the automatic division, even hostility between neighbours and family, if some members possess mixed heritage or have been living in a city. The sense that returning to the atmosphere of your upbringing is lost, after you have lived away from home, or progress has reached your village, is conveyed clearly.

We learn Christian missionaries left a mark on the west. A wonderful balance is accomplished with this book because many of the perspectives belong to transient residents. It is easiest to understand how it felt for them to adapt to West Africa; how they perceived its mannerisms. Christianity converted many but a thought is conveyed, that this may only reflect West African open-mindedness towards any solution that might improve life. West Africans were just as likely to experiment with other mysticism, blessings, or rituals. It’s encouraging that their old traditions survive modernism and pushier religions. I especially enjoyed learning West African words and a sample of family life.

[Mrsgaskell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margaret Laurence is one of my favourite Canadian writers and I've read all her "Manawaka" books which are set in a fictional town based on Neepawa, Manitoba which is only a few hours from where I live. This collection of 10 stories set in Ghana is Laurence's first published work and I was pleased to discover that it is not just because of the previously familiar setting that her writing appeals to me. I loved these stories which showed the clash between cultures, between education and lack of education, between religious beliefs, between the European and the African, the expatriate and the native, at a time of transition from colonialism to post-colonialism.

[Feathzzz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read in jail.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I taught short stories from this book to my post colonial English class. One in particular about an English boy named Matthew who lives in Africa, feels he is African until upon reflection when he is older and telling his story , realizes he never belonged and was just borrowing the country and that he was like all Brits taking what he wanted and leaving the remains Poignant and insightful

[Tinquerbelle]

1) The Drummer of All the World
2) The Perfume Sea
3) The Merchant of Heaven
4) The Tomorrow-Tamer
5) The Rain Child
6) Godman's Master
7) A Fetish for Love
8) The Pure Diamond Man
9) The Voices of Adamo
10) A Gourdful of Glory

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Godman's Master' is the best short story of the bunch. Interesting stories from a time when Ghana was obtaining its freedom from the British Empire.

[Dessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really neat to read some Laurence, because I haven’t read much of her. Neat to read these stories about an era I’m not familiar with — the British pulling out of Ghana — and interested to read them as Laurence, too, pulling out of Africa — realizing that she can’t understand the subject matter as well as, well, an African. Still tender, though, and man — she writes like a whip cracking, like a mist rising out of the ground slower than you can see until it’s inexplicably all around you.

[Mistypane611 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed both the book and the afterword 'Margaret Laurence knew that life is like the river, fluctuation and contradiction. But she wished to remind us that the exigencies of a world in flux do not exempt us from a simple human duty, the duty to imagine and re-imagine, to strive with compassion to plumb the hearts of our fellow strangers.'

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting group of stories that cover the world in Africa for Laurence as a writer. Some stories are sharper and show more connection than others but it does offer how Laurence is able to find voices outside her prairie roots.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved these short stories set in the Gold Coast shortly before independence, and barely more than a decade before I was born there.

[A. Macbeth’s bks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently, THE TOMORROW -TAMER was one of Margaret Laurence’s early publications, a collection of terrific short fiction .
Not only could she write awesomely well but she was an extremely smart woman with a highly developed social conscience. She was also exquisitely observant of life around her and seems to also have been very self-aware about her interior life, her emotions and sentiments , thoughts and feelings sensations and perceptions .
She was such a classy writer , now I remember why I thought in high-school during Margaret Laurences’s heyday that I could not write , I thought I knew about nothing compared to her , or nothing much to write about .
The last piece of fiction A GOURDFUL OF GLORY at first reminded me of JULIUS by Daphne du Maurier about the lives of country market people ; then as the story veered off into the Independence story of that technically unnamed country although we are told elsewhere it was Ghana, it reminded me of Booker T Washington describing for us how the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln came to the black people he knew in UP FROM SLAVERY.
Some of the other short stories in the collection also harkened to THE HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad although Conrad experienced the Congo many decades before Laurence experienced the Gold Coast .
I’m planning to read through the Margaret Laurence oeuvre but not immediately as I want to read through all the fiction I’ve got at home first . Although I could borrow her subsequent novels from my alma mater college library with my alumna library card at Concordia U, Mtl .