Alice Munro’s Narrative Art Alice Munro’s Narrative Art Isla Duncan alice munro’s narrative art Copyright © Isla Duncan, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978- 0- 230- 33857- 9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Duncan, Isla. Alice Munro’s narrative art / Isla Duncan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-230-33857-9 1. Munro, Alice—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Women and literature— Canada—History—20th century. I. Title. PR9199.3.M8Z595 2011 813'.54—dc23 2011018681 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Scribe Inc. First edition: November 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America. This book is dedicated to my partner, Gill. Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 The Confiding First- Person Narrator 19 2 Changing Perspectives 31 3 Competing Testimonies 53 4 The “Queer Bright Moment” 73 5 “The Love of a Good Woman” 91 6 What Is Remembered 105 7 “A Constant Reworking of Close Personal Material” 125 8 “Marooned on Islands of Their Own Choosing” 147 Notes 163 Bibliography 175 Index 181 Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to librarians at the University of Chichester, West Sussex, England, who have always been extremely helpful to me. Parts of this work have been published before, in slightly different form. They are: “‘It seems so much the truth it is the truth’: Persuasive Testimony in Alice Munro’s ‘A Wilderness Station,’” Studies in Cana- dian Literature 28, no. 2 (2003): 98– 111; “Disparity and Deception in Alice Munro’s ‘Lichen,’” British Journal of Canadian Studies 19, no. 1 (2006): 61– 77; “Social Class in Alice Munro’s ‘Sunday Afternoon’ and ‘Hired Girl,’” British Journal of Canadian Studies 22, no. 1 (2009): 15– 31. I am grateful to Studies in Canadian Literature, New Brunswick, Canada, and to Liverpool University Press, England (publishers of the British Journal of Canadian Studies) for their kind permission to reprint those materials here.