#3 Lives of Girls and Women

I have to admit, for my money, Alice Munro is pretty bankable. From her regular stories in The New Yorker to The Beggar Maid I never finish Munro without having taken something from it. I'm late getting to LOGAW according to its 2001 publication date; she occasionally falls off my radar. I like her, but she's not a head straight for her place on the shelf in the bookstore writer for me.

That said, I really enjoyed Lives, some of this, I'm certain is because it appeals to many of my own personal sensitivities. And, this probably doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement, but there is something a little Angela Walkerish in Munro's Del. Although, undeniably Del's issues are far more fraught and the consequences more immediate. You know as much on page one, the stand alone line "He was not our uncle, or anybody's" tells as much with the chills it sends down your spine. And, the line is well-played because the rest of the book is never quite as traumatic nor tragic as that for which that line sets you up, which oddly enough allows the myriad of struggles Del negotiate through the rest of the novel something of a relief.

The novel follows the pitfalls and struggles of Del working her way through adolescence, feeling like she doesn't fit in and no one gets her. She feels like a certain kind of girl, in a certain time and place, but maybe what works about it is that ultimately, it's about being a girl. Whether you are or were a girl like Del or not you recognize the struggle, the doubt, the want. "I felt that is was not so different from all the other advice handed out to women, to girls, advice that assumed that being female made you damageable.." Isn't the place from which we all start?