Simon Vance

A hard and fast, clean-sweeping sort of woman whose love was deep and sensible. It doesn't happen. Years later, in an act of vengeance, Liza comes by Bea and Ladner's house when the couple aren't at home and trashes the place. She goes about it methodically, pouring out liquor on the floor and trampling Ladner's taxidermied birds as though composing her masterpiece.

A hard and fast, clean-sweeping sort of woman whose love was deep and sensible. It doesn't happen. Years later, in an act of vengeance, Liza comes by Bea and Ladner's house when the couple aren't at home and trashes the place. She goes about it methodically, pouring out liquor on the floor and trampling Ladner's taxidermied birds as though composing her masterpiece.

Liza's poise is emblematic of the story as a whole, which unflappably narrates a more intangible destruction, that of her childhood self. What makes vandals so unbearably poignant, Liza's need and Bea's failure to protect her, is the same thing that now makes it so enraging.

Liza's poise is emblematic of the story as a whole, which unflappably narrates a more intangible destruction, that of her childhood self. What makes vandals so unbearably poignant, Liza's need and Bea's failure to protect her, is the same thing that now makes it so enraging.

The empathy Munro showers on her fictional child was apparently withheld from her real one, an operation that she seems to have considered fundamental to her work as a writer. In an early story, Munro describes a fiction writer ambivalently as someone who has figured out what to do about everything they run across in this world, what attitude to take, how to ignore or use things.

The empathy Munro showers on her fictional child was apparently withheld from her real one, an operation that she seems to have considered fundamental to her work as a writer. In an early story, Munro describes a fiction writer ambivalently as someone who has figured out what to do about everything they run across in this world, what attitude to take, how to ignore or use things.

It's clear from her letter to Barber that Munro was just such a person, going quickly to work on a personal tragedy and extracting what was usable. Whatever else vandals may reveal or conceal, it is clearly a product of authority and control, qualities Munro spent her whole life chasing.

It's clear from her letter to Barber that Munro was just such a person, going quickly to work on a personal tragedy and extracting what was usable. Whatever else vandals may reveal or conceal, it is clearly a product of authority and control, qualities Munro spent her whole life chasing.

Monroe grew up as a hostage to circumstance in Wingham, Ontario, where the Victorian age, she once remarked, ended only with World War II. Her mother was a puritanical control freak, full of voguish ideas about child-rearing. One of them involved administering enemas to regulate her daughter's bowel movements. Monroe resented all forms of coercion and often acted out.

Monroe grew up as a hostage to circumstance in Wingham, Ontario, where the Victorian age, she once remarked, ended only with World War II. Her mother was a puritanical control freak, full of voguish ideas about child-rearing. One of them involved administering enemas to regulate her daughter's bowel movements. Monroe resented all forms of coercion and often acted out.

In the early 1940s, when her mother started showing the first signs of Parkinson's disease, fatigue, tremors, and a tripwire temper, their frequent quarrels grew explosive. Monroe's father, who raised foxes for their fur, will be summoned to adjudicate. Sheila Munro, in her poignant and illuminating memoir, Lives of Mothers and Daughters, 2001, describes these parental courts martial.

In the early 1940s, when her mother started showing the first signs of Parkinson's disease, fatigue, tremors, and a tripwire temper, their frequent quarrels grew explosive. Monroe's father, who raised foxes for their fur, will be summoned to adjudicate. Sheila Munro, in her poignant and illuminating memoir, Lives of Mothers and Daughters, 2001, describes these parental courts martial.

What my mother found most painful was her perception that a story was being told on me that wasn't true, and that she was never allowed to tell her side of the story. Munro was sometimes violently beaten, an early lesson in the power of narrative and the danger of losing control of it.

What my mother found most painful was her perception that a story was being told on me that wasn't true, and that she was never allowed to tell her side of the story. Munro was sometimes violently beaten, an early lesson in the power of narrative and the danger of losing control of it.

Writer was hardly a plausible career for someone raised in rural poverty in Depression-era Wingham, especially a girl. People never asked, Am I happy? Munro later said of the place where she grew up. Self-fulfillment wasn't a concept. She began writing anyway, cannibalizing her indecorous origins.

Writer was hardly a plausible career for someone raised in rural poverty in Depression-era Wingham, especially a girl. People never asked, Am I happy? Munro later said of the place where she grew up. Self-fulfillment wasn't a concept. She began writing anyway, cannibalizing her indecorous origins.

Her early work, published while she was raising a family in Vancouver, was assured but undistinguished. The deaths of her parents, her mother in 1959 and her father in 1976, cleared the way for a new candor and artistic leaps forward. In Royal Beatings from 1977, her first story to appear in The New Yorker, she evokes the thrashings she received as a child and the wounded reveries that followed.

Her early work, published while she was raising a family in Vancouver, was assured but undistinguished. The deaths of her parents, her mother in 1959 and her father in 1976, cleared the way for a new candor and artistic leaps forward. In Royal Beatings from 1977, her first story to appear in The New Yorker, she evokes the thrashings she received as a child and the wounded reveries that followed.

She will never speak to them. She will never look at them with anything but loathing. She will never forgive them, Rose, the protagonist, thinks of her parents. She will punish them. She will finish them. Encased in these finalities and in her bodily pain, she floats in curious comfort beyond herself, beyond responsibility.

She will never speak to them. She will never look at them with anything but loathing. She will never forgive them, Rose, the protagonist, thinks of her parents. She will punish them. She will finish them. Encased in these finalities and in her bodily pain, she floats in curious comfort beyond herself, beyond responsibility.