Simon Vance

Roberta, another of Munro's embattled divorcees, has recently moved in with George, a retired high school teacher who is busily renovating an old farmhouse. Roberta's two daughters, Angela, 17, and Eva, 12, are visiting for the summer. They spend the rest of the year with their father up north. This domestic setup is tense and provisional.

Roberta, another of Munro's embattled divorcees, has recently moved in with George, a retired high school teacher who is busily renovating an old farmhouse. Roberta's two daughters, Angela, 17, and Eva, 12, are visiting for the summer. They spend the rest of the year with their father up north. This domestic setup is tense and provisional.

George makes barbed remarks about Roberta's appearance, which leave her weeping behind sunglasses. She senses that he sees her daughters as spoiled freeloaders, refusing to help out around the house and garden. The girls, meanwhile, are wary of George, who is trigger-happy with belittling jokes. They are also grieved by his effect on their mother.

George makes barbed remarks about Roberta's appearance, which leave her weeping behind sunglasses. She senses that he sees her daughters as spoiled freeloaders, refusing to help out around the house and garden. The girls, meanwhile, are wary of George, who is trigger-happy with belittling jokes. They are also grieved by his effect on their mother.

I have seen her change, Angela confides to her diary, which Roberta has read, from a person I deeply respected into a person on the verge of being a nervous wreck. If this is love, I want no part of it. He wants to enslave her and us all, and she walks a tightrope, trying to keep him from getting mad. The story, you sense, walks its own tightrope between blindness and insight.

I have seen her change, Angela confides to her diary, which Roberta has read, from a person I deeply respected into a person on the verge of being a nervous wreck. If this is love, I want no part of it. He wants to enslave her and us all, and she walks a tightrope, trying to keep him from getting mad. The story, you sense, walks its own tightrope between blindness and insight.

It was written at a time when Monroe must have known she was married to a paedophile, but apparently still clung to the belief that he hadn't harmed her own daughters. It is remarkable to witness her at once planting and defusing this incendiary possibility.

It was written at a time when Monroe must have known she was married to a paedophile, but apparently still clung to the belief that he hadn't harmed her own daughters. It is remarkable to witness her at once planting and defusing this incendiary possibility.

She has been afraid sometimes that George would hurt her children, not physically, but by some turnabout, some revelation of dislike that they could never forget, Roberta thinks. Angela, the teenager who is tall and fair-haired and embarrassed by her recently acquired beauty, spars with George flirtatiously, but Roberta feels she is not the one in most danger.

She has been afraid sometimes that George would hurt her children, not physically, but by some turnabout, some revelation of dislike that they could never forget, Roberta thinks. Angela, the teenager who is tall and fair-haired and embarrassed by her recently acquired beauty, spars with George flirtatiously, but Roberta feels she is not the one in most danger.

It is twelve-year-old Eva, with her claims of understanding, her hopes of all-round conciliation, who could be smashed and stranded. Understanding and conciliation are what the story ultimately deliver. When the narrative moves into George's consciousness, he is forgivenly humanized. We see that his frustration with Angela and Eva is really a frustration with their mother.

It is twelve-year-old Eva, with her claims of understanding, her hopes of all-round conciliation, who could be smashed and stranded. Understanding and conciliation are what the story ultimately deliver. When the narrative moves into George's consciousness, he is forgivenly humanized. We see that his frustration with Angela and Eva is really a frustration with their mother.

He dislikes what he sees as her parental absenteeism, the way that she permits them to laze around the house all day. His critique of Roberta's mothering is rooted in a kind of fatherly concern. For all their quarreling, they are essentially aligned. He wants to go and find Roberta and envelop her, assure her, assure himself that no real damage has been done.

He dislikes what he sees as her parental absenteeism, the way that she permits them to laze around the house all day. His critique of Roberta's mothering is rooted in a kind of fatherly concern. For all their quarreling, they are essentially aligned. He wants to go and find Roberta and envelop her, assure her, assure himself that no real damage has been done.

The story ends with the couple reconciled, at least for the time being, and Roberta's daughters unharmed. Like Vandals, Labor Day dinner is an autonomous work of art. Yet it also feels like a desperate piece of wish fulfillment. How badly Monroe must have wanted to believe that her partner was basically normal and decent.

The story ends with the couple reconciled, at least for the time being, and Roberta's daughters unharmed. Like Vandals, Labor Day dinner is an autonomous work of art. Yet it also feels like a desperate piece of wish fulfillment. How badly Monroe must have wanted to believe that her partner was basically normal and decent.

No, it wasn't a mistake, Roberta tells herself, musing on her divorce in a passage that echoes Monroe's words about Fremlin in 1975. Luck exists, so does love, and I was right to go after it. In her fictional world, where she exercised total authority, it was possible to construct a version of events that supported this conviction. But Munro, it seems, was wise to her escapist tendencies.

No, it wasn't a mistake, Roberta tells herself, musing on her divorce in a passage that echoes Monroe's words about Fremlin in 1975. Luck exists, so does love, and I was right to go after it. In her fictional world, where she exercised total authority, it was possible to construct a version of events that supported this conviction. But Munro, it seems, was wise to her escapist tendencies.

The uses and abuses of narrative come in for special scrutiny in her work. In Material from 1974, the middle-aged narrator discovers a short story by her ex-husband Hugo, a well-known writer. It describes an episode from the early years of their marriage, when Hugo vindictively flooded the apartment of their downstairs neighbor, a low-rent prostitute named Dottie.

The uses and abuses of narrative come in for special scrutiny in her work. In Material from 1974, the middle-aged narrator discovers a short story by her ex-husband Hugo, a well-known writer. It describes an episode from the early years of their marriage, when Hugo vindictively flooded the apartment of their downstairs neighbor, a low-rent prostitute named Dottie.