Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives: A Biography

by Robert Thacker

This is the book about one of the world’s great authors, Alice Munro, which shows how her life and her stories intertwine.

For almost thirty years Robert Thacker has been researching this book, steeping himself in Alice Munro’s life and work, working with her co-operation to make it complete. The result is a feast of information for Alice Munro’s admirers everywhere.

By following “the parallel tracks” of Alice Munro’s life and Alice Munro’s texts, he gives a thorough and revealing account of both her life and work. “There is always a starting point in reality,” she once said of her stories, and this book reveals just how often her stories spring from her life.

The book is chronological, starting with her pioneer ancestors, but with special attention paid to her parents and to her early days growing up poor in Wingham. Then all of her life stages — the marriage to Jim Munro, the move to Vancouver, then to Victoria to start the bookstore, the three daughters, the divorce, the return to Huron County, and the new life with Gerry Fremlin — leading to the triumphs as, story by story, book by book, she gains fame around the world, until rumours of a Nobel Prize circulate . . .

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Canada

616 pages, Hardcover

First published November 22, 2005

Reviews

[Pia]

Now we know. Robert Thacker is a rape apologist. Knew Munro was complicit in the sexual abuse her daughter suffered at the hands of her husband and had the gall to say, "shit happens, not my problem."
Yeah, maybe not his place to reveal Munro's dark family secrets, but I've never heard anyone so tone-deaf and callous when speaking about another person's life-altering trauma.
Withholding a rating because I did not actually read it and have no interest in skewing the rating because of my personal views, just an FYI if you choose to support this writer by buying his book. It may, in fact, be a good book. And you might think Alice Munro is a good writer, but she is certainly not a good person.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

[Jennifer Bridge · Rating 1 out of 5]

https://medium.com/@JennBridge/the-fl...

Robert Thacker was just about to publish his biography of Alice Monro when he was informed by her daughter, Andrea Gibson, of Munro’s husband Gerry Fremlin’s conviction for sexually abusing her. He went ahead and published it anyway. I find this an astonishingly perplexing decision. The book, titled, “Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives.” follows, as he describes, “parallel tracks of Alice Munro’s life, Alice Munro’s texts.” I cannot understand the thought process of Thacker. Yes, he had just spent 30 years researching and studying her work. Yes, he had just finished his book, and it was just about to be published. However, why did he not pull the book and reevaluate in light of this new and fundamentally significant information.

As reported by Rachel Aviv in her long form piece in the New Yorker (December 2024) entitled ‘You won’t get free of it’ - shortly before the book’s publication, Andrea and her sister, Jenny, reached out to Thacker to discuss Gerry's conviction. Thacker assured Andrea that he would “scrutinise the text to ensure that I am not, as you say, ‘spreading the lie.’” This statement, however, belies a deeper issue: how can one truly grapple with Munro's artistic legacy without acknowledging the significant impacts of familial dysfunction and trauma? As Rachel Aviv wrote, Andrea's response was pointed: "I meant pull the book entirely. I didn’t mean cross out adjectives that flatter Mr. Fremlin." Her incredulity at Thacker's apparent oversight speaks volumes about the responsibility biographers have to faithfully depict their subjects' lives.

[Lise Mayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very thorough recounting of Alice Munro's personal and literary journey. I found the first third of the book captivating, telling about her early life and influences on her desire to become a writer. I discovered that she was already a gifted writer as a young person, and who her influences were (LM Montgomery (same here!) and Eudora Welty (new to me). I want to pursue reading the books and short stories which influenced her. She described so well how writing was her way into the world, helping her to feel whole and fulfilled. She had no choice but to write her lives. It overtook every other aspect of her existence. She chose the life of the "dark artist," rather than the traditional wife and mother.

As the book progressed and got into details of agents and contracts, I lost interest and skimmed the rest, just looking for glimpses of Alice's writing process, which I learned is intuitive and highly autobiographical (though she claimed it isn't). Anyone who wants the nitty gritty details of her progress as a literary superstar might be interested in the last two thirds of the book.

Thacker is the authority on Alice Munro, par excellence. When I read the Nobel Prize committee's description of her, it sounded as if they had lifted it right from this book. There is no author's credit though. Which is strange. Though Thacker's book was published in 2004, it definitely presages Munro's Nobel Prize win. He and of course many others, already recognized her world class standing and exceptional skills which will stand the test of time.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thacker assumes that everyone who reads his book has already read all of Alice Munro's stories, which was certainly not the case for me. He spends much time on reviews of the books, which gets to be a bit TOO much, as almost all of them are quite gushing. However, this is a very solid bio and well worth reading.
It took me almost 5 years to finish the book just because it has SO many pages and I now prefer to read on Kobo, as I can blow up the font to a very comfortable level. So one of my New Year's resolutions was to buy the Kobo version and read again from page 1. So yes, I own it twice, but my paper copy is still pristine, AND signed by the biographer.
I also was inspired to inventory the Alice Munro books that I own (eight of them) and discovered that I have a hardcover autographed by her as well, no doubt from a 1990 reading at Harbourfront in Toronto (before I had children, when I used to go out).
I will now read more of her stories, even if I have to buy all her books again in e-format!

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Munro is a private person, and Thacker is careful not to over-interpret her work. As a result, vast portions of this book are about the editing, publishing, and reviews of her stories. There is relatively little about Munro's life and thoughts.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have no qualms about condemning this book unread. The author knew that his subject knew her husband had abused her daughter from the age of nine yet after a brief separation went back to him and never supported her daughter emotionally or acknowledged the crime. His implied claim that you could write a credible biography without dealing with that issue is ludicrous and repugnant and his silence until the details came out is frankly disgusting and inexcusable.

From a recent Reuters report: https://www.reuters.com/world/america...

In 2005, with his biography of Munro then in production, Robert Thacker got an email from Skinner outlining the abuse, he said in an interview on Monday.
Thacker said that he decided to leave out the allegations from his book, "Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives." [The abuser admitted his abuse and pleaded guilty in court that year]
"I knew about it but I also said I wasn't going to do anything because I didn't want to," he said. "It's a different kind of a book."
Years later, he said, Munro brought it up herself while speaking with him.
"What she said was how devastating it all was," Thacker said. "She hadn't gotten over it and frankly I don't think she ever did." He said he was certain that she knew how much she had hurt her daughter.

[Kevin Macdonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this! Great survey of Munro’s life and work, and it also offers interesting insight into the history of Canada’s publishing industry (specifically the 50s - 70s), highlighting the impact of people like Robert Weaver and publications like The Tamarack Review.

Haven’t read many biographies or literary biographies, so don’t have much to compare this to, but I like how the biographer resisted imposing a narrative arc on her life and let it, for the most part, stand on its own (much like Munro does with her stories!)

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful Alice Munro biography and reference to writings. I actually "read" this over a 4 year period when I was researching Alice while I read her short stories.

[Sebastian]

First read: September 25, 2023, Monday

[Catherine Flynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit thin on what I would most like to have known about Munro. The inclusion of some truly mundane facts makes it feel strained to meet the length requirements.

[James F · Rating 2 out of 5]

A biography of this year's Nobel laureate in literature, although written in 2001, revised in 2010. Her biography is nothing surprising if you've read any of her books, which are all partly autobiographical. This concentrates a lot on the publishing history of her books and her relationships with her editors, rather than her private life; yet although talking about the books it has little of substance about the stories themselves. It also quotes far too much from reviews of her books. OK, but not outstanding.

[Marguerite]

This book gives stunning insight into how a writer of genius takes everyday dross and adolescent embarrassment and spins it into literary gold. It prompted me to reread the Alice Munro collections I already owned and scan bookstore shelves for the ones I didn't. (I could have borrowed them from the local library, but then I would have had part with them after three weeks.)

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad to read this biography of a great writer. I bought this and a volume of her short stories at Munro's Books in Victoria in August. I learned about the business of being a writer. I look forward to reading her short stories.

[Jayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full of detail, it is a careful telling of times, events and talent of an immensely private person. One can tell it is the product of a dissertation. A valuable resource.

[Sylvia Abrams · Rating 3 out of 5]

A scholarly review of Alice Munro's writing career, not much personal life after the dissolution of Munro's first marriage. The author's encyclopedic knowledge of Munro makes thie tome slow going.