Simon Vance

Instead, I was struck by their utter composure. In the work Munro produced after learning what happened to her daughter, she seems to bear down on her horror and disgust with an implacable resolve. The struggle is made clear in an unpublished letter to her agent and close friend, Virginia Barber, dated May 1993, which was among her papers at the University of Calgary.

Instead, I was struck by their utter composure. In the work Munro produced after learning what happened to her daughter, she seems to bear down on her horror and disgust with an implacable resolve. The struggle is made clear in an unpublished letter to her agent and close friend, Virginia Barber, dated May 1993, which was among her papers at the University of Calgary.

I thought I'd write and tell you the fate of the latest story, because it's usually hard to talk frankly on the phone. I've been working on it, the story, since March, and it's about the subject, though thoroughly disguised and all pretty effectively constructed.

I thought I'd write and tell you the fate of the latest story, because it's usually hard to talk frankly on the phone. I've been working on it, the story, since March, and it's about the subject, though thoroughly disguised and all pretty effectively constructed.

I could do all the parts, but the central thing, and when I approached that, and I tried from various angles, I got sick, I mean really throwing up, and felt very bleak. This has happened three or four times, and I realized finally I might sort of break apart. So I burned it, not to be tempted to go on.

I could do all the parts, but the central thing, and when I approached that, and I tried from various angles, I got sick, I mean really throwing up, and felt very bleak. This has happened three or four times, and I realized finally I might sort of break apart. So I burned it, not to be tempted to go on.

That's where matters stand now, and I'm just gingerly, no pun, trying to start something else and regain my equilibrium, which I can do. But Monroe, it appears, did go on with a story about the subject. Vandals, which appeared in the New Yorker five months later, is a clear-eyed meditation on willful blindness and the tragedies it can precipitate.

That's where matters stand now, and I'm just gingerly, no pun, trying to start something else and regain my equilibrium, which I can do. But Monroe, it appears, did go on with a story about the subject. Vandals, which appeared in the New Yorker five months later, is a clear-eyed meditation on willful blindness and the tragedies it can precipitate.

Be doubt, an aging divorcee has fallen for a man named Ladner. an army veteran with a mile-wide misanthropic streak. There is something in Bea, some hidden primal wound, that responds to Ladner's harshness. Certain women, she muses, thinking of herself, might be always on the lookout for an insanity that could contain them.

Be doubt, an aging divorcee has fallen for a man named Ladner. an army veteran with a mile-wide misanthropic streak. There is something in Bea, some hidden primal wound, that responds to Ladner's harshness. Certain women, she muses, thinking of herself, might be always on the lookout for an insanity that could contain them.

Ladner lives in gothic isolation on a remote tract of land which he has transformed into a nature preserve full of taxidermied animals. Most people are shooed away, but he makes an exception for two young children, Liza and Kenny, a neglected sister and brother who live across the road and often come to play on his property.

Ladner lives in gothic isolation on a remote tract of land which he has transformed into a nature preserve full of taxidermied animals. Most people are shooed away, but he makes an exception for two young children, Liza and Kenny, a neglected sister and brother who live across the road and often come to play on his property.

The pair have lost their mother, and when Bea, who is childless, starts to live there, she becomes a highly welcome stand-in. At moments, the four of them seem almost like a family. The reality is otherwise. With tremendous subtlety, Monroe reveals to us that Ladner has been sexually abusing Liza for years.

The pair have lost their mother, and when Bea, who is childless, starts to live there, she becomes a highly welcome stand-in. At moments, the four of them seem almost like a family. The reality is otherwise. With tremendous subtlety, Monroe reveals to us that Ladner has been sexually abusing Liza for years.

Bee, whose perspective we inhabit for the first part of the story, seems not to notice what is happening. It is only when we shift to Liza's point of view that the truth starts coming into focus, though even then Munro inhabits the child's defenceless confusion. In a crucial scene, Ladner makes fun of Bea behind her back, imitating the clumsy way she plods into a lake.

Bee, whose perspective we inhabit for the first part of the story, seems not to notice what is happening. It is only when we shift to Liza's point of view that the truth starts coming into focus, though even then Munro inhabits the child's defenceless confusion. In a crucial scene, Ladner makes fun of Bea behind her back, imitating the clumsy way she plods into a lake.

It is a performance intended for Liza's eyes only, a way of signalling that it is her, not Bea, with whom he shares the greater intimacy. When Bea looks around and sees what he is doing, Liza is distraught. It seemed to her that Bea would have to go away. How could she stay after such an insult? How could she put up with any of them? But Bea goes nowhere.

It is a performance intended for Liza's eyes only, a way of signalling that it is her, not Bea, with whom he shares the greater intimacy. When Bea looks around and sees what he is doing, Liza is distraught. It seemed to her that Bea would have to go away. How could she stay after such an insult? How could she put up with any of them? But Bea goes nowhere.

Her obsessive dependency keeps her tethered to Ladner. It also thwarts Liza's unvoiced hope that Bea will somehow rescue her, or at least find a way to keep Ladner in check. She could spread safety if she wanted to, the child desperately thinks. Surely she could do it. If only she could turn herself into somebody firm and serious.

Her obsessive dependency keeps her tethered to Ladner. It also thwarts Liza's unvoiced hope that Bea will somehow rescue her, or at least find a way to keep Ladner in check. She could spread safety if she wanted to, the child desperately thinks. Surely she could do it. If only she could turn herself into somebody firm and serious.