Alice Munro (1968 [1983]) Dance of the Happy Shades

This is Munro’s first book, a collection of fifteen short stories, won her Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s award and put her name on the literary map. The literary ghosts of rural Canada and later characterisations are  here. Her father is here in shadow form, unable to make a living despite working 365 days a year, seven days a week, farming furs like minx and fox, penned up in small cities with their own walkways. Her mother is here ‘Red Dress—1946’ with her big plans and her socially upwards aspirations, if not for herself, at least for her daughter, for her family, for herself: ‘My mother, never satisfied was sewing a white lace collar on the dress; she had decided it was too grown-up looking.’  In the penultimate story, ‘The Peace of Utrecht’ a sister ‘Maddy’ who has been left at home with their mother makes an appearance as do her Aunts, who are described as ‘indesturctible’.  This to me is one of the most poignant stories and in a way prophetic. Their mother had early onset Parkinson’s disease and fought to stay at home with her daughter Maddy, but has been placed in a nearby hospital. The narrator has married and brings her small children to visit.  ‘ “Don’t be guilty, Maddy,” I said softly.’  Here in simple terms is the dilemma facing ten of thousands others, and in a line that almost mirrors one in a story I attempted to write,  sums up in an aphoristic form the problem and the arrived at solution. ‘ “I couldn’t go on,” she said. “I wanted my life.”’ We all want at life and when I grow up I too want to be a writer.  I can go on, but I’ll just bore you in a way Munro never could.