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Contents

About This Volume, Charles E. May vii

Career, Life, and Influence

On , Charles E. May 3 Biography of Alice Munro, Charles E. May 19

Critical Contexts

Alice Munro: Critical Reception, Robert Thacker 29 Doing Her Duty and Writing Her Life: Alice Munro’s Cultural and Historical Context, Timothy McIntyre 52 Seduction and Subjectivity: Psychoanalysis and the Fiction of Alice Munro, Naomi Morgenstern 68 and Alice Munro: Writers, Women, Canadians, Carol L. Beran 87

Critical Readings

“My Mother’s Laocoon Inkwell”: and the Classical Past, Medrie Purdham 109 Who Does Rose Think She Is? Acting and Being in The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose, David Peck 128 Alice Munro’s : Free (and) Radical, Mark Levene 142 : Alice Munro and the Power of Narrativity, Philip Coleman 160 In Search of the Perfect Metaphor: The Language of the and Alice Munro’s “Meneseteung,” J. R. (Tim) Struthers 175 The Complex Tangle of Secrets in Alice Munro’s , Michael Toolan 195 The Houses That Alice Munro Built: The Community of , Jeff Birkenstein 212 Honest Tricks: Surrogate Authors in Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, David Crouse 228 Narrative, Memory, and Contingency in Alice Munro’s , Michael Trussler 242

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Alice_Munro.indd 5 9/17/2012 9:01:50 AM “Secretly Devoted to Nature”: Place Sense in Alice Munro’s The View from Castle Rock, Caitlin Charman 259 “Age Could Be Her Ally”: Late Style in Alice Munro’s , Ailsa Cox 276

Resources

Chronology of Alice Munro’s Life 293 Works by Alice Munro 296 Bibliography 297

About the Editor 301 Contributors 303

vi Critical Insights

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