Pre-Owned Lives of Mothers and Daughters : Growing up with Alice Munro (Hardcover) 9780771066696

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 Contributor: Sheila Munro