Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives: A Biography | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Thacker
Publisher: Douglas Gibson Books
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $26.95
You Save: $13.00 (33%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1222626
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 616
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 6.9 x 1.7
ISBN: 0771085141
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780771085147
ASIN: 0771085141
Publication Date: November 22, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Hardcover edition. This item is new.
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Product Description
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 . . .
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| Customer Reviews:
 I was a little disappointed July 21, 2008
As the previous reviewer points out, the treatment of Munro's life here is shallow. But I think the point of a biography is to reveal something about the real life of the public figure. There is nothing intimate or even especially human about this book. The better part of it seems devoted to recording all the praise Munro has ever received by editors, reviewers, etc. No one would buy a $40, 616-page book about Alice Munro if not already convinced that she is an extraordinary writer. I didn't feel I needed to read every scrap of adulation ever accorded to her. I wanted details about her life, her writing process, maybe an in-depth discussion of different stories. She's written tirelessly about adultery, tortured love affairs, estranged daughters. I was hoping for something specific or in-depth about how these themes have informed her own life. Again, that doesn't seem unreasonable for a biography. I'm not saying Thacker was wrong to resist visiting these places, especially as he is so star-struck and respectful of his still-living subject. But I am saying that this book was just too safe and careful to be interesting.
 A Must for Munro Fans July 10, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Robert Thacker has written a respectful, enlightening biography of Alice Munro that focuses mostly upon the critical reception to her work and the personal and business circumstances that made possible her surprisingly large audience. He also spends plenty of time making the case, one way or the other, that Munro ought to be regarded as one of our great writers.
Like many biographies written while their subjects are still alive, the memoir is fairly shallow in its probing of Munro's personal life. It sticks to the facts and avoids digging around much in the darker places, except to show where the work is reflective of difficult personal circumstances.
All this is very forgivable, because this is the only Munro biography we yet have, and it is plenty readable, and it is pleasing to spend a little more time thinking about Munro and her fine stories.
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