Dear Life - Dear Alice Munro, Part 2

 I find similarities between Hoosiers and Canadians in Alice Munro's Dear Life (2012; Vintage International, 2013). .I Noticed this first with Robertson Davies - although his Cornish Trilogy lives at a level I cannot match in Indiana - and then with Margaret Atwood's Ontario novels (Robber Bride, Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin.).

But Munro moves out of Toronto for the smaller towns that seem not quite the far out suburbs and not always their won independent economic entities, either. Her people knew better days and do not quite know their place nowadays. (See  "Corrie" and "Pride" and "Leaving Malvery" as examples.), or where they do not  know where they fit into a new era ("To Reach Japan" and "Train" come to mind here).  This strikes me very similar to lives in Indiana where the economic stresses of the last 40 years unmoored a wide swath of people in communities across the state. Yes, "Amundsen" and "Leaving Malvery" and "Train" touch on Toronto but they are not of Toronto. Her characters belong to those settlements where the rural is just a step away. Not unlike much of Indiana.

Religion has its adherents in Munro's stories - although I do not recognize, nor does she explain, the United Churches - but all are Protestants, just as in most of Indiana. But there is no religious fanaticism.

To be continued

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2/26 -27/20