Biographer's Regret - Alice Munro and the Autobiographer's Right

Season 3, Ep. 29

What do you want to know for? This is the question Linda considers as she writes her biography about Jane Rule - one that Nobel-Prize winning writer, Alice Munro, has considered many times as she weaves autobiography and fiction in her work, specifically in the book under discussion in this episode, The View from Castlerock. Linda discuses:

• Questions of biography (2.32, 19.00)

• Jane Rule (3.00)

• Alice Munro's autobiographical impulses (3.10, 6.33)

• Munro's Dear Life (4.30)

• Munro's The View from Castle Rock (5.08, 8.00, 9.32)

• Her story, "What Do You Want to Know For" (19.32)

In the Takeaway, Linda looks at Zoe Whittall's book, The Spectacular (published by HarperCollins) -- which it really is. She does consider the polarized reviews, and then suggests why it may be that some were positive and others not as much. Ultimately, she sees Whitall's book as falling within the tradition of the short story cycle, the very genre in which Munro specializes.

For more scholarship about celebrity autobiography and memoirs in Canada, check out Katja Lee's Limelight: Canadian Women and the Rise of Celebrity Autobiography (WLUP, shortlisted for the Gabrielle Roy Prize in 2020), or Lorraine York and Katia Lee's Celebrity Cultures in Canada (UTP 2016).

Host & Writer: Linda Morra, Co-producers: Linda Morra & Marco Timpano, Music: Raphael Krux