Lives of Mothers & Daughters: Growing Up With Alice Munro

by Sheila Munro

“So much of what I think I know – and I think I know more about my mother’s life than almost any daughter could know – is refracted through the prism of her writing. Such is the power of her fiction that sometimes it even feels as though I’m living inside an Alice Munro story.”

The millions of people around the world who read Alice Munro’s work are enthralled by her insight into the human heart. Consider, then, what it would be like to have a mother who was so all-knowing. Worse, if that mother were world-famous as you were growing up and trying to make your own way as a writer, while you yourself followed in her footsteps, raising a family and trying to write on the side.

That is Sheila Munro’s dilemma, and it gives this book special fascination for anyone interested in their own relationship with their own mother, or their own daughter.

This book is, in effect, an intimate, affectionate biography of Alice Munro. It describes in a way that only a close relative could, the details of the family background. We follow the family history from the Laidlaws who left Scotland in the early 19th century, to Alice Munro’s birth in 1931, her early years and marriage all the way to the current family, including Alice Munro’s grandchildren. One of the many fascinations of the book is that faithful readers of Alice’s work – and are there any other kind? – will find constant echoes of settings, situations, and characters that occur in her fiction. So this book is not only a fascinating biography of Alice Munro, it also provides an informative commentary to the stories we all know.

But Sheila Munro goes further. As a writer growing up in the shadow of a writing mother, she’s able to write frankly and personally about being a daughter and about being a writer. With the publication of this book – richly embellished with scores of family photographs – Sheila Munro has established herself as a skilled and successful author in her own right.

• Includes dozens of fascinating Munro family snapshots scattered throughout the text
• Full of real-life details that will fascinate any Alice Munro fan

Genres: Memoir, Biography, Nonfiction, Canada, Biography Memoir

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It must have taken a lot of courage to write this memoir. I think most writers would concede that writing is difficult enough, but when one’s mother is The Alice Munro, it must have been excruciatingly tough to do. Can you imagine carving out a niche for yourself if she was your mother? This in itself, to me, warrants a higher rating than I might ordinarily give.

Lives of Mothers & Daughters: Growing Up with Alice Munro is definitely more about Sheila Munro than it is about her mother. Yet while I found those parts interesting, it was the personal anecdotes about Alice Munro that I really treasured. I also appreciated the black and white photographs included throughout the text. Sheila includes information about her ancestors who arrived in Canada, from Scotland, in the early 19th century, long before her mother’s birth in 1931. I basically skimmed those sections, anxious to get back to the more personal tidbits. The writing style is simple, straightforward; and Sheila tries to maintain a balance about what her life was like growing up with her ambitious mother.

This memoir/biography is not at all like My Mothers Keeper by B.D. Hyman. (I read that many years ago and am surprised I finished it, it was so mean-spirited.) In fact, in 1997, Alice Munro asked her daughter if she would like to write her biography. It took Sheila about six months before she realized that she did want to write about her mother, but that she was too close to her to write a biography; what she preferred, was to write a memoir: For years I had been writing vignettes about my own life, but I could never find any framework into which they would fit; they seemed to be going nowhere, and I was growing more and more frustrated. It occurred to me that perhaps I could use a memoir as a framework. And as for learning more about Alice Munro, I was in the unique position of being able to talk to her any time I wanted, about anything and everything under the sun. I was having conversations with her that other writers would kill for.

And therein lies the main reason to read this book: not even Robert Thacker, who took thirty years to research his tome of a biography, was able to provide such intimate details about Alice’s life, although Alice finally granted him interview time – thirty hours over six days. And Alice not only sanctioned Sheila’s decision to write a memoir, she provided time for her to write: There seems something ironic about this, my mother taking James for a walk so I can write. Secretly I feel like a fraud. I’m not a real writer. Yes, I’ve written book reviews, but everyone – especially reviewers – knows they don’t really count. (I included that last sentence for the obvious reason!)

So little was known about Alice Munro before the publication of this book because Alice deliberately kept a barrier between herself and her writing, and the rest of the word; she was, and is, an “intensely” private person. Sheila says: The family life she lived with us was not her real true life. That was the solitary life she led at her writing desk.

Whenever I went to Comox to visit family, I thought of trying to find out exactly where it was Alice Munro lived. I fantasized about catching her in her yard as I passed by jogging, and stopping to have a little chat over the fence. Not any more. And besides, after reading this book, I know that I wouldn’t likely find her out gardening in the first place – she’d be inside, busy writing!

There are many little details that I could include here to entice you to read this book. But if you’re an Alice Munro fan, as I am, you will prefer to read them yourself. Suffice it to say that I was so fascinated with the information about how personal things related to various stories, that I am now rereading one of Alice Munro’s earlier collections: Who Do You Think You Are? Stories By Alice Munro. Sheila Munro’s memoir has provided a picture-window that I did not have before. Alice Munro’s stories were powerful reading before, but they have been enriched for me because of the insights shared in this memoir about growing up with one of the most famous fiction writers in the world. I am very grateful to Alice Munro’s daughter for giving me that.

[Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are my favourite anecdotes about Alice Munro from this, her daughter's memoir about her mother:

Alice looks at herself in a mirror, watched by a very young Sheila. "I have an excellent figure. Don't tell anyone I told you that."
*
Alice designs a bookmark to hand out at her bookstore which has a drawing of a girl staring sadly into a mirror with the caption "Seduced and abandoned? Relax with a book from Munros!"
*
Alice and a good friend nickname a neighbour "Difficult Passage" because the neighbour's stodgy husband has told them that in giving birth his wife had suffered a "difficult passage."
*
Alice rummages through the garbage in desperation after accidentally throwing out "another" royalties cheque.
*
Alice listens at the kitchen table to Sheila's boyfriend -recently out of jail for heroin possession- explain, "'Yes, I'm after her body, but I'm after her mind too.'" Sheila sits beside him, "the mute object of desire, silenced by pride and shame." Alice Munro nods understandingly.
*
(Bonus anecdote: Margaret Atwood reads Sheila's astrological chart at a backyard family barbecue in the 70's.)

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

It starts out as a little girl's incisive glance into her mother. I liked the first half much more than the second half. That felt, the portions when Sheila was older and married, much more about Sheila and also padded out. In other words, at times redundant to make it book length. And it also, for me, lost some of the translation to the core of Alice's divorce of her 20 year long marriage and her entry into another marriage in short order. IMHO, the crux of that was rather "skipped".

But she IS a woman of her times, Alice. Absolutely is. Because marriage is what she sees as her natural state. And one that couples with writer more than her affinity to the motherhood/writer connection? Perhaps!

It's interesting if you like Alice Munro's work. And if you truly want to understand the "eyes" of a time where it was considered, even by the woman writer, that it also held definition as "full time" vocation to hold a home and keep it in a manner which nurtures the children. And the time to write? Incredibly important, essential. AFTER the other essential structure "work", despite the sarcasm for polishing appliance knobs.

This is about class consciousness and societal worldview too. Alice's differed from her husband's. And frankly, she is most clearly a snob in many senses of judgment. With the arts or "better" affectations prime. And holding extreme likes and dislikes on top of it.

Worth the read if you like Alice Munro. Her women characters ARE of their times. And she sure can frame them. But this is just as much about her personally and her daughter's dithers too, as much as it is about analysis of Munro's stories or literary mark.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are several ways to appreciate this book, I think: admirers of Alice Munro, one of Canada's most highly esteemed writers, will of course want to read it. But did I feel that I really 'knew' or understood Alice Munro from reading this selective biography? Not really. I actually thought that the strongest chapters were the ones in which the subject (Alice: mother and writer) was the furthest removed from the author's (Sheila: daughter) examination. When Sheila Munro broadens her scope to describe her grandparents or her ancestors - the Scottish pioneers who came to Canada in the 19th century - or how women's roles changed during the 20th century, I thought the biographical material was at its most interesting. Some of the mother/daughter dynamics were fascinating to me as well. Sheila Munro describes a mother who was often aloof when she was a child; more like a peer or 'sister' when she was a teenager during the 60s; and then, in older age, a more traditionally 'maternal' emotional support. Alice Munro married at 20, and became a mother to Sheila not long afterwards. There is definitely the sense that both mother and daughter not only grew up together, but changed together along with the massive shifts of the mid to late 20th century.

There is a fair amount of reference to Alice Munro's writing, particularly as it was impacted by her own family history or formative experiences. I had mixed feelings about these allusions, which definitely relied on acquaintance with the works described. My least favourite chapter was the final one, in which Sheila Munro discusses how difficult it was to become a writer on her own terms in the shadow of her mother's reputation. Although her position should have been a sympathetic one, I felt it lacked balance and came across as whiny and a bit boring. It was definitely a flat ending to the memoir. On the other hand, I thought Sheila's writing had a lot of appeal when she was describing her childhood homes and memories. Having recently visited both Vancouver and Victoria, two of the Canadian locations for the Munro family story, I really enjoyed these personal portraits. Also, the inclusion of many family photographs was truly an added bonus.

Recommended for fans of Alice Munro, and readers who are interested in Canada and 20th century women's history.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered Alice Munro this past winter and once I found her I've wanted to read all of her stories. Though I love her writing I often have issues with the way children are treated in her stories. I've wanted to get into her head and understand why the children are often dismissed by the adults in their lives. So I was most interested to read this memoir by her daughter Sheila. I would not give this book 4 stars for the writing - and the construction is rather clunky. But the insight to Alice's life is wonderful. The book also has plenty of photographs of the Laidlaw (Alice's parents) and Munro families which really add to the personal information. While Alice was a somewhat reluctant mother when her daughters were young they seem to have had happy childhoods. Sheila, as an adult though maybe not as a child, seems to appreciate Alice's hands-off parenting style. And she understands what Alice had to do to write. I especially enjoyed how Sheila connected times in Alice's life with her stories - now I want to read each story with this new insight. While I wasn't sure how I felt about Alice before, I find that I like her now, and that will add to my enjoyment, and appreciation of her stories.

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my second read of the book. Being a longtime Alice Munro fan, I bought it hot off the press and dove in. Back then I related to the North Vancouver references and Alice's experience of life there in the fifties and early sixties, as my family lived there then and left in mid-sixties. I could not really relate to Sheila's relationship with her mother, as it was different than mine. It was very illuminating, though, to understand the cultural changes that helped Alice Munro grow in her writing and personally. Though in retrospect, she questioned some of her choices.

The Victoria chapters were also of interest since I've lived here for over four decades and wonder what it would have been like earlier.

I also enjoyed Sheila connecting various Munro stories to actual events--giving a context for some of my favourite pieces--something I enjoyed this time too. I also got more from Munro's Laidlaw and Chamney family histories on this read, as I noted parallels between my own genealogical research and these early Canadian histories.

I reread the book after the latest scandal regarding youngest daughter Andrea's essay on abuse by her stepfather. I had thought it odd that no explanation was given why Andrea went back to live with her father during the school year after Alice had taken her when she'd left that marriage and lived for a couple of years that way. I was curious if I'd missed something. But no, the secret was kept so this account doesn't hint at that part of the family's history.

There seems to be enough change in the last two decades that another volume by the sisters could be written, if they really wanted to delve back into it. Maybe it's just less fraught to not have to live under the cloud of their mother's disconnect between parenting and self-actualization.

[Catie]

Recommendation from @beth.bonini - 8/30/2017

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps not a perfect book objectively speaking, but perfect for me at this precise moment. I reveled in it

[Marilyn Boyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a reread, and I valued Sheila Munro’s writing much more this time.

[Jane Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book. Good to read while reading Alice Munro's stories. Brings a whole.new dimension.

[Katrina Sark · Rating 4 out of 5]

2 – North Vancouver 1952-56

p.37 – My mother has told me that until she was twenty-three or so her writing was consciously imitative. She wanted to write like Virginia Woolf or Henry James, exploring the minute problems in people’s lives, trying to get at some ineffable experience. She wanted to capture some atmosphere about a place, some feeling that was important, to get at “the exact texture of how things are.” In her own estimation, the stories she was writing were so loaded down with description that she hardly had time to get around to the characters and what happened to them.

4 – “Housewife Finds Time to Write Short Stories” 1959-63

p.82 – Women had to prove they weren’t intellectually inferior, because all the popular Freudian psychology was saying that you were, that women were biologically incapable of logical or abstract thinking. I’m reminded of the episode in Lives of Girls and Women where Del has read an article about how men look at the sky and think of the universe, while women look at the sky and think, “I have to wash my hair.” It was important to be rational, to be logical, those were important virtues at that time, “masculine” virtues, whereas now it is the reverse, and the “feminine” virtues of empathy and intuition are more highly regarded than reason.

p.83 – In the arguments, my father was on the side of conformity, conventional values, and conservative politics, and my mother was on the side of individualism, left-wing politics, and rebellion against conventional values. My mother thinks he did a very brave thing in marrying her and going against his parents, but that at some level what he wanted was for my mother to be the kind of conventional woman that his parents would have preferred him to marry – and he wanted the artist he did get.

8 – The Making of a Writer 1931-49

p.169 – “You have to start [writing] early and you have to want it more than just about anything else.” (from an interview with Graeme Gibson)

I used to believe that my mother’s talent, or genius or whatever you wish to call it, had sprung forth of its own accord, like Venus on the half shell, without much effort or work on her part. To some extent this was true; storytelling came to her so naturally and so early that she was “dazzled” by what she could produce at fifteen or sixteen. Now, of course, I know that after a period of youthful excitement she did undergo a long and arduous apprenticeship, beginning stories and novels then having to abandon them, suffering long periods of writer’s block, getting depressed by rejections. By the time she was writing the kind of stories she wanted to write she was in her early thirties, and she had been writing for about twenty years.

9 – Victoria and the Bookstore 1963-66

p.178 – By 1963 my father was taking his dream of opening a book store seriously, and starting to make plans. Downtown Vancouver wasn’t a good location because Duthie’s had recently opened, but he didn’t want to be in the suburbs, he wanted a central location. It occurred to him that the city of Victoria, on Vancouver Island, was a logical place for a new bookstore. Though still a sleepy town in those days, BC’s capital city was starting to open up. A ferry service from the mainland had started in 1960, and a new university, the University of Victoria, had opened its doors in 1962. My father had loved Victoria since his days in the navy: he loved its history, its Victorian architecture, its antiquated English charm, and he loved the fact that it received only a third of the rainfall that Vancouver did.

p.182 – In the nearby Oak Bay neighbourhood (known as being “behind the tweed curtain” because it was so English), Ivy’s Bookstore opened a few months after Munro’s (Ivy had worked for Duthie’s in Vancouver), taking away some of the university crowd my father had hoped to draw on, partly because Ivy let university professors run a line of credit.
Munro’s Book Store opened its doors on September 19, 1963, and on that first day it made over a hundred dollars, an amount that would not be equaled again for a long time afterwards.

p.183 – 105 Cook Street – Our new rented house was a grey stucco bungalow in South Fairfield on the east side of Beacon Hill Park, about a twenty-five-minute walk from downtown. It was then a very ordinary older neighbourhood, now a gentrified preserve where houses have been painted in fashionable shades of grey or green or taupe.

p.184 – Then, as now, Victoria was a magnet for retired people from all across the country, who were attracted to the mild climate. We used to say Victoria was for “the newly wed and the nearly dead.” Across the street were the words of Beacon Hill Park, and at the end of the street two blocks away was the ocean where you could look across the Straight of Juan de Fuca to the snowy mountains of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.

10 – Rockland 1966-73

p.210 - Munro’s in the late sixties became something of a mecca for Victoria’s counterculture. It was the first establishment in Victoria to sell personality posters, black-and-white blow-ups of twentieth-century icons: W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Pierre Elliott Trudeau with a rose in his teeth, soon followed by psychedelic posters with their fluorescent colours and swirling patterns. Munro’s had art nouveau bookmarks, including one designed by my mothers and one of the staff members with a drawing of a girl looking sadly into a mirror and the caption, “Seduced and Abandoned? Relax with a book from Munro’s.”

In 1967 I went to Centennial Square in downtown Victoria by City Hall. It was famous for being the place where the hippies hung out, to the consternation of the municipal officials.

I was sitting on the edge of the fountain when a young man with long hair (a notable drug dealer in Victoria, I later found out) came up to me, bend over, and kissed me on the lips. It was an ecstatic moment, like the moment in Lives of Girls and Women when Garnet French touches Del’s hand in the Baptist church. It was an affirmation of the power I had.

p.224 – It seems to me that in the Epilogue [of Lives of Girls and Women] my mother is looking at what she really wants to do as an artist. She is saying here that there is no need to elaborate and embellish; people’s lives are interesting enough of you can only capture them the way they really are. “People’s lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing and unfathomable – deep caves lined with kitchen linoleum.”

11 – “So What Do You Write?” 1973-2000

p.234 – When I was going through all this, my mother wrote to me. “The point is you have to withdraw attention – either as a tactic or to save yourself. As long as you’re there, suffering and bitching, but there, hung up on him, the situation is not going to change. Being in love that way just isn’t good, there must be a better, self-sufficient way to love. (I am preaching to myself as well as you.) Get so you don’t need him. Work at it. Then of course he may come back all humble and interested (that happened to me with…). Women like us have got to get away from emotional dependency or life is just one dreary manmade seesaw. Take this to heart.”

[Gord Higginson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite book about Alice Munro, written by her eldest daughter. Loaded with photos (about 75 family snapshots) and interesting anecdotes about the stories behind the stories. "Miles City, Montana"--one of my favourite Munro yarns, for example--was based on a real and almost calamatous (sp?) event in the Munro family history--the near-drowning of Alice's middle daughter, Jenny, in Miles City, Montana. Not as exhaustive or as scholarly as Thacker's massive bio of Munro, but still good fun, easy to dip into anywhere, and to feel for Sheila-the-underdog as she struggles to become a writer while under the monumental shadow of her famous mother.
I've gone back over Sheila's book a number of times such that the Munro family is almost like family to me, too.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alice Munro is absolutely my favorite short story writer, a master of the craft. This memoir by her eldest daughter not only provides interesting background on her mother's life, but shows that considerable talent was passed down. I found this very well written and refreshingly candid, not just a biography, but a personal memoir as well. It also demonstrates that the pressures on women trying to find a balance between self-realization and the needs of family are with us today in many ways just as they were in the fifties.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book. The author is three years older than me so we have a lot of the same 1960s-70s cultural references. Also liked the story of her mother's life. As a writer myself I find I share some of the needs Munro had re: looking for the time and space to write and feeling out of sorts when not able to work.

Loved the family history as well - nothing out of the ordinary - just like most other lives - but really very interesting.

[Carole Yeaman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alice Munro has been my favourite author for 50 years (1st published book -- Dance of the Happy Shades). Nice to see bits and pieces in the corners of her life. WHY DID SHE NOT GO TO SWEDEN TO PICK UP HER NOBEL?

[Olga Vannucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing was her life
If only they would let her.
She came from a long line
Of able storytellers.

[Jagdish Choudhary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unable to read.

[Noa Raanan · Rating 3 out of 5]

For Alice Monro's fans only.

[Kelley · Rating 1 out of 5]

You should only read this book if you are a serious Alice Munro fan -- and I am. It is otherwise not especially interesting, except for the occasional insights about Munro's unhappiness or her sense that she was awkward, an outsider, not well understood -- mostly because she spent a childhood fantasizing about being a celebrity.

Sheila Munro is not a difficult writer, just an uninspired one. She struggles, finally, at the end of the book to say what is really on her mind, why she is _really_ writing this book: to come to terms with a famous mother, to come to terms with not feeling like she's a good enough writer to be the daughter of such a well-known writer. I really wish she'd gotten it out of the way in the beginning. And then just had it out, wrestled with it and gotten dirty. Instead, I see most of what's in this book as sterile exercises that were, well, exercises recommended in her writing class: just write the memory (or whatever).

OK, perhaps a worthy exercise and contribution to writing about an author who is well-known but for which there are surprisingly few decent, in-depth bios. Still, as S Munrol writes the memory, Sheila Munro just refuses to get all dirty and spill her guts, which is what she does at the end. And you're a little taken aback to learn about all her hostility and repressed guilt for those feelings. My guess? If Sheila Munro could do that, she'd start writing what she longs to write, instead of the prose she writes: which tends to read as objective, third-party reportage, as if Munro's memories are coming at her through an ocean of water.

[Chris Gager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got this from the library finally and started last night even though I'm still reading Comanche Moon. So far it's only OK but it's dealing with the author's little-girlhood, a time when she wouldn't necessarily have a lot of interesting things to say about her mother. Still... there are interesting tidbits, including the apparent ambivalence of AM about having children at all. She was a super-smarty(i.e a genius) coming out of high school and heading to college on a scholarship. Still, her life-prospects seemed pretty limited in socially and culturally conservative western Ontario. She was ambitious, however, and once she started writing that was IT for her. And for us! I'm so glad because Alice Munro is my favorite writer. She comes at life from the inside and describes it as she perceives it. And... she is so bleeping SMART!

Almost finished last night. This book is only OK as it focuses much more on the growing-up memoir of the author than it does on her mother's career. Still, the family history is interesting. I read The View from Castle Rock, which is a sort of fictional representation some of it. Also interesting are the many examples of how AM wove pieces of her own life experiences into her fiction. I was struck in particular by the one behind "Save the Reaper" - one of my favorites. Munro's mother was a semi-crazy person it seems. She was beaten by her father a number of times at the instigation of the mother - see "Royal Beatings." When I read that particular story I wondered if it had happened to AM. It did!

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because, like many others, I am a Alice Munro devotee. However, I was not disappointed like some of the other readers. How much about a person's life do we really need to know? I feel that this book was snippets of Alice and Sheila's lives...much like Alice's writings is snippets of other people's lives. I learned a bit of backstory, and enough of Alice's life story to remain interested, and not end up jaded or feel as if I knew too much.

[Karin · Rating 3 out of 5]

As others have said, this is best suited for super serious Alice Munro fans who want to know more about her background, writing process, and private life. Interesting to hear it through her daughter's eyes; how an event got morphed into a situation in one of Alice's books, and what it was like growing up in Alice's shadow.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Alice Munro's daughter's memoir of her mother at the same time as I read A View from Castle Rock, Alice's semi-fictional collection of stories based on her own life and that of her ancestors. It's interesting to note the parallels. I'd recommend reading these in tandem.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting biography of Canadian writer Alice Munro by her daughter, Sheila Munro; growing up with Alice. The special thing about this book is that my wife arranged for a signed copy of the book, surprisingly, Sheila delivered it to us personally... Lovely present.

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent book for those interested in the process of writing. M x

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sheila Munro may be Alice Munro's daughter, but her memoir of growing up in this family lacks the insight or details for which her mother became famous.

[Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book. I especially enjoyed it after just reading one of Alice Munro's books. Her daughter is a fine writer - one reallys gets the feeling of Alice and her family.

[Nan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I enjoyed this book, after reading 'Dear Life' by Alice Munro just recently. It was really interesting to read about Alice's life, from her daughter's point of view. If you are familiar with her earlier stories, it would be particularly interesting to draw parallels to them and to Alice's life.