The Life of Margaret Laurence

by James King

  As a respite from all the troubles of the year, Margaret, Jocelyn and David spent Christmas 1976 in England. At a carol service given by the Royal Choral Society at the Royal Albert Hall she could feel the presence of the Christian dispensation as “the whole mighty audience, thousands, including me, rose and we sang our hearts out. It was magnificent. I could not see the printed words through my tears.” In those wonderful moments, she returned in spirit to childhood Christmases and, in spite of the awfulness of the world and the rebuffs she had recently endured, she was filled with hope.

  19

  LOST HISTORIES

  (1977–1985)

  “I HAVE DONE nothing, it seems, for months (years!) except run around to seminars and conferences and so on.” This was Margaret’s complaint in June 1977. If her life continued to be dominated by such activities, the “one or two faint ideas” she had about a new novel would “never grow.” She was, of course, paying the price for being Canada’s most-beloved—and vilified—writer.

  A part of her clearly recognized her writing career as a novelist might be over, but she also had the ambition to create new works of fiction. Mary Adachi was in charge of furnishing her with the scribblers in which she wrote. This was not an easy job because she knew Margaret was having difficulty writing and she wanted to encourage her by providing an ample supply of notebooks, while being careful not to exacerbate the problem by burdening her with too many.

  Just as Margaret had earlier set fire to her literary archive before leaving Elmcot, she later destroyed virtually all the work on the two or three novels she worked on after her arrival back in Canada. Although the references in her letters to these various projects are vague and she never directly talked about these “lost” novels, it is possible to reconstruct some information about them. Her first ambition was to write a novel about the Old Left in Winnipeg, a group that had fascinated her many years before. She dropped this project in favour of a new Manawaka novel, but then realized she could not do this because those books formed a coherent whole. Such a project would be a “refuge,” not a new creative beginning. One of the books she actually began can be glimpsed in a 1979 letter to Adele Wiseman: “I want to do something, sometime, with the evangelist thing, but I wonder if at this point in my life it would come out sounding like a desire for revenge.” This novel would have been a kind of Elmer Gantry narrative, one which explored the inner workings of the fundamentalists who had so viciously attacked her.

  At first glance, this seems an extraordinary project, given Margaret’s other books. However, in The Stone Angel and A Bird in the House, the stern, authoritarian demeanour of her grandfather had served as inspiration. A book on the fundamentalists would have returned her to that domain. Her skills as a writer were not satirical, and a book about the fundamentalists would have required her to delve into the world of—and, in the process, perhaps write sympathetically about—her enemies. Her insecure side pulled her in the direction of a book in which to some extent she would have explained and justified the conduct of her opponents. The strong, resilient side of Margaret ultimately resisted any such impulse because it would have been a form of capitulation.

  But she worked on various novel projects for long stretches of time. On September 5, 1981, she mentioned that after “thinking about a novel for about 3 years, I’ve finally got going … (after 5 false starts … rather depressing). It sure doesn’t get easier.” In 1980, she outlined the grim situation to Gabrielle Roy: “My writing goes so slowly and so badly, of late. I have three times made a false start on a novel, and so far have torn up about 50 pp of handwriting. However, my handwriting is somewhat large and scrawling, so it isn’t as much as it sounds. I am pretty sure there is a novel there, somewhere, if only I can find it, or at least find my way into it.” As never before, her confidence—difficult to muster—would suddenly flow away.

  On September 14, 1981, she caught sight of the possibility of being at long last on to something:

  Work progressing very slowly, but oddly enough I feel a kind of confidence beginning to grow. What puts me off the track is when I get too upset about the state of the world and think—what am I doing, writing fiction, when the world is falling apart? Then again, I used to feel like that 25 years ago in Vancouver, and at many times since. We have to go on working.

  Less than a week later, she had crashed:

  I hate everything I’ve written so far in this damn so-called novel. The problems are still there, namely that the forum is formulas and the writing is garbage. I am not—repeat, not—in despair, however, just feel very quiet and don’t feel like talking very much. I will get over it. I have this persistent feeling that one day there will be some kind of revelation, and I will know pretty well how to go about telling the story.

  There is always the fear that perhaps the gift really has departed. If so, (and I don’t say it is so) Morag never knew the half of how painful that would be.

  By January 1982, she had to face the fact the “gift” might indeed have passed beyond her ability to reclaim it:

  Have stuck to my realistic schedule this week, and have re-written (for the 100th time) the first part of Chapter I. Now I’m stuck again. Have just sat at that damn desk for about 2 hours. Nothing. Zilch. I know what I want to do but am scared to begin. The next bit has to be totally re-shaped in every way from the first way I did it—I must not even look at the some 75 pp (handwritten) I did before. I think of a sign that used to be on a local shop (shoppe?) … Antiques & Junque. Those 75 pp are Junque. But contain the thread of the narrative I want. I don’t know why I experience more crises of confidence these past few years than I ever did before.

  So many factors contributed to the “why”: for the most part, she had written most effectively about Canada when away from it; she may well have said what she wanted to say in the Manawaka novels; she had always resisted “mockups” of novels, pieces of fiction written just to write something; she had been publicly branded as immoral and irreligious. And so unable to write and badly scarred by the attacks of the zealots, she began to take stock of her religious values.

  Margaret’s religious sensibility, reawakened following her brush with the fundamentalists, forced her to define her brand of Christianity in opposition to theirs. She thought of herself as a Christian, and the fundamentalists proclaimed themselves such. How was this possible?

  In the winter of 1976, her old friends Lois and Roy Wilson, then United Church ministers in Hamilton, received a surprise phone call: “This is a friend out of your past. It’s Margaret Laurence, and I’m here signing books and I’m bored to death. Can I come over?” At that meeting, Margaret renewed her friendship with her two friends from United College days.

  Tiny, wiry and dynamic Lois quickly realized Margaret’s religious convictions were in the process of being revitalized. So close did the two become that Margaret later agreed to participate in a dialogue sermon with Lois in Kingston in 1979. In 1982, shortly after Lois was elected Moderator of the United Church, she received a letter from Margaret which read in its entirety:

  Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

  Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

  The revitalized friendship between the two women cut two ways. Margaret prepared for Lois in about 1980 “A Selected and Highly Personal List of Canadian Novels in the Past Couple of Years,” which includes Adele Wiseman’s Crackpot, Alice Munro’s Who Do You Think You Are?, Margaret Atwood’s Life Before Man, Jane Rule’s The Young in One Another’s Arms, Marian Engel’s The Glassy Sea, Oonah McFee’s Sandbars, Florence Evans’ A Man without Passion, Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Matt Cohen’s The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, Rudy Wiebe’s The Scorched-Wood People, Robertson Davies’ Deptford trilogy, three novels by each of Jack Hodgins and Gabrielle Roy, and two by Don Bailey.

  In turn, Lois provided her with a list of books by contemporary feminist theologians. The influence of such writers can be seen in one of the reflections Margaret offered at
Kingston:

  I have a feeling that there has to be more recognition of the kind of female principle in God. I don’t mean people going around with T-shirts saying: “Trust in the Lord; She will provide.” That is a trivial way of looking at it. But after centuries of thinking of God in strictly male, rather authoritarian terms, it seems to me that there has to be some recognition of the female principle in God. We understand God, of course, very imperfectly. We really cannot define the informing spirit of the Universe because that is the mystery at the core of life.… I think many women nowadays, and many men, feel the need to incorporate that sense of both the motherhood and fatherhood in the Holy Spirit.

  Rather than allowing herself to be spiritually browbeaten by the fundamentalists, Margaret used the experience to renew her faith and to achieve a new vision of the ineffable power of God, one that included at its centre the notion of female power. Of course, the acquisition of power by women is one of the central themes of her fiction. Late in life, she was able to blend that concern with her religious beliefs. Another important early relationship that was revived in the late 1970s was with her brother, Robert, his wife, Pat, and their two daughters. With Bob and Lois, in particular, she was retracing roots, trying to get in touch with the Peggy Wemyss of years before.

  Even if she had been able to write on a consistent basis, Margaret Laurence the secluded public figure would have found it extremely difficult to find time in which to do so. She provided an excellent analysis of her situation to Frank Paci: “My problem is not isolation; it is not having enough time to contemplate, think, pace the floor, try to get into this damn novel that I feel is there somewhere. I have an unfortunate tendency to get myself involved in Good Causes.” She was constantly besieged by writers and/or their publishers for blurbs for their books—“tender messages” or “TMs” she called them; from 1974, she published at least twenty-five essays, introductions and book reviews. She also intervened on behalf of other writers, usually without being asked and without informing the person she was attempting to assist. For example, she tried on several occasions to interest Judith Jones in Alice Munro well before Knopf became that writer’s American publisher. Sometimes, Margaret lost patience with the trappings of fame, particularly when she felt someone was taking advantage of her. In a moment of uncharacteristic honesty on this sore point, she exploded in a letter to Andreas Schroeder: “I am not Mother Earth. In fact, I do not feel that at present I can call myself a writer, as I have been unable (not through lack of trying) to write what I would like to write, for some years now. For some time, if I am not mistaken, I did try to help other and younger writers. Now I need help. A shocking thought? Mum isn’t strong?” She needed help, but her drinking was off-putting to even close friends, who were embarrassed by seeing someone of her stature reduced to speaking in childish babble. When they were with her, Jocelyn and David felt the same way.

  In 1977, in an attempt to keep the plenitude of “Good Causes” at bay, she prepared a form letter listing twenty-two activities which she could not undertake (giving publishing advice, editing or reading manuscripts, giving interviews). In order to protect herself from the likes of the boorish woman who telephones Morag near the beginning of The Diviners, Margaret resorted to an unlisted phone number.

  The “Good Causes” she did take on included membership on the board of directors of Energy Probe, writing campaign materials for the NDP in 1980 and working on Lynn McDonald’s election campaign in 1984, active involvement with Project Ploughshares and Operation Dismantle, and agreeing in 1981 to become Chancellor of Trent University.

  Even good works could be hazardous. In April 1984, she allowed Freedom of Choice to send a letter out under her signature (with a photograph) and asked Leslie Paul, the national coordinator, to let her see some of the responses. She advised Margaret that this was not a good idea, but the president of Freedom of Choice overrode this decision when it became necessary to report some of the mail to the police. One of these stated: “I want to get you pregnant and then we’ll kill him (or her) together. Fun? Wow! Afterwards we’ll eat the child for dinner!” For a woman living alone and in an extremely accessible place in a small village, this would have been very frightening. She sent this material to Adele with a note attached: “I hate to send you this terrible stuff. But here it is—we have to know.”

  In the midst of the banning scandal in 1976, Margaret had agreed to join the Board of McClelland & Stewart, but she soon was at loggerheads with the “Boss.” Certainly, she found herself in a distinct minority, feeling she did not have much in common with the captains of industry she met there. In March 1977, she voiced her strong disagreement to the publishing of a second Roloff Beny book on Iran, which she argued was an extremely repressive regime. In September 1977, she went behind McClellands back and sent a letter to members of the Board concerning the Writers’ Union. As her letter to Purdy of September 28 makes clear, she did not enjoy being part of a process which was meaningless and depressing:

  Every time I attend a board meeting I come away feeling so depressed I think I can’t stand to remain on the Board. I don’t think I will, either, after the year I promised is up, in the spring. What good do I do? None. The Board is only a figurehead … Jack [has] already decided exactly what to do. Every time I raise my voice, or write long letters to Jack, he listens attentively or replies in an equally long letter, and pays not a scrap of heed. All the news seems bad, financially, which means they will take fewer and fewer risks with first novels, or with any thing remotely experimental or different. At times I just want only to stop thinking about it all. I get disrupted for days afterwards—emotional retrogression.

  She stayed on for four years, not resigning until May 20, 1980, citing a potential conflict of interest: “As my whole professional life is tied up with McClelland & Stewart and as most of my income for some years now has come from royalties on books published by the firm, it is obviously in my interest that those books should remain in print.”

  Despite this desire, she did not like McClelland’s publicity/fund-raising stunts, such as the Night of the 100 Authors wherein the chosen writers paraded into a large, glittering ballroom where they were to be joined by their host or hosts (wealthy sponsors). To her agent, John Cushman, she penned her reflections: “Thank God I had lunch with you that day … that was the only good thing that happened.… After the authors’ cocktail party, we, the authors, were led as lambs to the slaughter, into what was apparently a long basement corridor connecting one kitchen with another … The corridor was airless … My feet hurt. I got more and more irritated … ‘If this line does not move soon,’ I proclaimed, ‘I AM GOING HOME,’ [whereupon her publicist offered to take her in before anyone else]. Are you out of your head? I’m a socialist!’ ” Finally, when they got to the dining room, Margaret’s host for the evening was not there.

  In 1982, an exhausted Jack McClelland decided to become Chairman of the Board and to leave the actual day-to-day running of his firm to Linda McKnight, who succeeded him as president. Margaret, who was also trying to simplify her life, told the “Boss” how much he had meant to her, despite the various scraps. These included the fight over the title of The Fire-Dwellrs: “At the time I didn’t realize that the firm was in dire straits financially and you had a lot more on your mind than the title of one author’s book. I also recall the famous battle over the Writers’ Union contract, when I angrily wrote to all the Board members. Ye gods, I now think the union contract is far too ambitious and complicated and needs to be simplified and made more realistic (I think this is being done). Also the fight re: the Iran book … Well, we have disagreed a lot, throughout the years, Jack, but the main thing is that I have always felt I could express my views and that although you might disagree with them, you would always take them seriously.”

  She was an outspoken champion of social justice, one who never had patience with the polite mechanics of democracy. So when she felt McClelland was unwilling to listen to the concerns of the
Writers’ Union on the issue of contracts, she had taken action. Now her appointment as Chancellor of Trent quickly brought her into similar hot water. By definition, a Chancellor acts as a ceremonial figurehead, and, on paper, it seemed a brilliant stroke to invite one of Canada’s most famous women to serve in that capacity at the nearby university. In the process, Margaret’s passionate nature was overlooked.

  Nine months after having been installed as Chancellor, she challenged the contents of a report which in her view would irrevocably and negatively transform the nature of the small university, the proposed changes being backed by Donald Theall, the president. For some reason, she did not receive the report until it had been in the hands of the other members of the Board for two weeks. Meanwhile, faculty members had appealed to her, providing her with their side of the story. After studying the report for two days, she sent a six-page single-spaced letter to the Board chairman, providing carbon copies to eight others. Her letter was later printed in full and thus available to all members of the Trent community. When a furious Theall telephoned, she invited him to lunch the next day. He berated her for forty-five minutes on her unseemly behaviour, not touching the meal she had prepared.

  Margaret, meanwhile, remained a vehement supporter of the Writers’ Union. Clear-eyed about its role, she offered the novelist and editor John Metcalf some frank advice: “But I really don’t see how you can blame the union, John, just because someone who is a member gave you an unfavourable review. We stand together (hopefully) on matters concerning our common welfare and financial advancement (although goodness knows there are bound to be, always, many differences of opinion about how those issues should be approached, too) but not necessarily in terms of our views on anything else, whether political or the assessment or writing or whatever. I certainly don’t expect the union to take responsibility for what I say.”