by James King
11 “a certain amount”; “Then thus goes”: ML to Jack McClelland, 11 July 1975. MS: McMaster. Two years later, when Godfrey’s new book was published, ML wrote to Purdy on 15 February 1977 (MS: Queen’s): “Have you seen his I CHING KANADA? He takes it seriously, and tells people to tell the I Ching according to him. I think now that Dave thinks the truth comes not from God but from Godfrey. As you probably know, he was very nasty re: THE DIVINERS coming out in Bantam Canada edition, and wrote me a very prickly letter. When I replied, saying that I’d agreed only to 2 yrs exclusive rights and 5 yrs total right and that it would come out in 1978 in the NCL, he made no reply.
“About a year ago, I happened to run into him when I was at a meeting with what was then the IPA [Independent Publishers Association], with the union Contract committee, and he came in to the office, and I said to him ‘Did you get my letter?’ He said ‘Yes, but the novel looks pretty funny there, Margaret, it looks pretty funny.’ I said ‘I have two kids to put through university and I do not have an academic salary.’ The hell with him. He used me, at one time. Okay, live and learn.”
12 “WHY HAD I”: ML to Ernest Buckler, 15 February 1975. Wainwright, 33–34.
13 “Does that say”: The Diviners, 21.
14 “Let’s sleep now”: The Diviners, 365.
15 racist sentiments: Bailey, Memories of Margaret, 207.
16 “We are having”: ML to Malcolm Ross, 14 February 1977. MS: University of Toronto.
17 Alice Munro: She had an extremely different reaction to the situation: “I thought it was a huge joke. And I wrote [ML] a funny letter about it because I thought it was so funny. But she and I, who were both verging on—at least into—middle age, were both rather cautious writers who had difficulty with some scenes, and suddenly we were thought of as being dirty. I thought this was hilarious. It gave me a new lease on life, like being thought a scarlet woman. She was a more serious person than I was, in the sense of her life in the world.… She grew up in a small town. She should have known there’s a lot of ill will.” Wainwright, 143.
18 “They got up”: ML to Jane Rule, 9 June 1976. MS: University of British Columbia.
19 “damn near”: ML to Al Purdy, 23 August 1976. MS: Queen’s.
20 Huron County: See ML to Hugh MacLennan, 29 January 1979. Wainwright, 116. In a meeting with the county’s Board of Education, ML’s opponents cited sexually explicit content in The Diviners as the primary reason for its removal from the Grade 11 teaching list. The Huron County branch of the Catholic Women’s League took the charges against ML one step further calling for The Diviners to be removed from the Grade 13 curriculum. Clarice Dalton, the league spokesperson, admitted to never having read the book, but claimed to have seen excerpts and considered them “dirty” (The Toronto Star, 25 April 1978). In August 1978, the Huron County school board voted 9 to 7 to remove The Diviners from the Grade 13 curriculum. In 1978, a bakery worker and a Baptist minister initiated a similar campaign against The Diviners in the Annapolis Valley; in April 1978, an Etobicoke school board trustee unsuccessfully attempted to have A Jest of God banned as a high-school text because of its “swear words” and sexual content (The Toronto Star, 28 April 1978).
21 “My first reaction”: ML to Jack McClelland, 23 February 1976. MS: McMaster.
22 “suggesting that they”: Jack McClelland to Margaret Laurence, 23 February 1976. MS: McMaster.
23 “I have angered”: ML to Al Purdy, 10 August 1976. MS: Queens.
24 “Why didn’t”: ML to Al Purdy, 15 February 1977. Lennox, 340.
25 “Re: my writing”: ML to Al Purdy, 15 February 1977. Lennox, 340–1. Purdy on cessation of friendship with ML: When I asked Purdy about the abrupt but largely unexplained cessation of his correspondence with ML, he told me that his memory of that time was not good and that he had not read—and did not intend to read—John Lennox’s edition of his correspondence with ML. Later during our conversation, I suggested that some of the letters not printed by Lennox suggested that his friendship with ML had “trailed off” because of her anger and hurt about his conduct regarding The Diviners—and perhaps because he had felt that ML had been “too demanding.” He told me that I might well be right in making such an assumption but that I should also emphasize that his friendship with her was never broken. He went on to observe that a great many friendships simply “peter out” over the course of time.
26 “what worries me”: ML to John Metcalf, 30 August 1977. Wainwright, 137.
27 “AREN’T SERIOUS WRITERS”: ML to Ernest Buckler, 5 January 1978. Wainwright, 42.
28 “sensational”: ML to Margaret Laurence, 6 August 1976. MS: Budge Wilson.
29 “And the last man”: Bailey, 223.
30 “after I’d had”: ML to Margaret Atwood, 10 January 1971. Wainwright, 2.
31 “I have begun”: ML to Will Ready, 17 March 1977. Wainwright, 164.
32 “I suppose”: ML to Hubert Evans, 4 July 1980. Wainwright, 71.
33 “a sense of grace”: ML to Hubert Evans, 19 March 1982. Wainwright, 73.
34 “the whole mighty audience”: ML to Hubert Evans, 17 February 1977. Wainwright, 69.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1 “I have done nothing”: ML to Al Purdy, 27 June 1977. MS: Queen’s.
2 “I want to do”: ML to Adele Wiseman, 20 January, 1979. MS: York.
3 “thinking about”: ML to Frank Paci, 5 September 1981. Wainwright, 149.
4 “My writing”: ML to Gabrielle Roy, 3 March 1980. Wainwright, 186.
5 “Work progressing”: ML to Adele Wiseman, 14 September 1981. MS: York.
6 “I hate everything”: ML to Adele Wiseman, 20 September 1981. MS: York.
7 “Have stuck”: ML to Adele Wiseman, 22 January 1982. MS: York.
8 “My problem”: ML to Frank Paci, 11 February 1981. Wainwright, 147.
9 “I am not”: ML to Andreas Schroeder, 2 February 1981. Wainwright, 193.
10 “I want”: Adele Wiseman papers. MS: York.
11 “Every time”: ML to Al Purdy, 28 September 1977. Lennox, 359–60.
12 “As my whole professional”: ML to Jack McClelland, 20 May 1980. MS: McMaster.
13 “Thank God”: ML to John Cushman, 2 October 1982. MS: McMaster.
14 “At the time”: ML to Jack McClelland, 16 March 1982. MS: McMaster.
15 “But I really don’t”: ML to John Metcalf, 12 January 1978. MS: University of Calgary.
16 “As I mentioned”: ML to Jack McClelland, 29 May 1978. MS: McMaster
17 “my income”: ML to Hugh MacLennan, 4 June 1980. Wainwright, 119. “It has been”: ML to Hubert Evans, 4 July 1980. Wainwright, 71.
18 “When I called”: Jennifer Glossop to Jack McClelland, 23 July 1979. MS: McMaster.
19 “the little book”: ML to Jack McClelland, 9 August 1980. MS: McMaster.
20 “when my kids”: ML to Malcolm Ross, 10 August 1980. MS: University of Toronto.
21 “Wow!”: ML to Jack McClelland, 4 November 1980. MS: McMaster.
22 “Somewhat to my”: ML to Jack McClelland, 21 May 1981. MS: McMaster. In 1977, she had been given the Periodical Distributors’ Award for the mass paperback edition of A Jest of God; in 1980, The Olden Days Coat won second prize, Canadian Library Association’s Best Children’s Books of 1979.
23 “of course has been”: undated entry. MS: McMaster.
24 “I do not”: Copy in the Adele Wiseman papers. MS: York. On 18 April 1983, while reflecting on her decision to withdraw from public life, she told Malcolm Ross (MS: University of Toronto): “What with The Writers’ Union (from which I have reluctantly resigned, mostly because it seemed to me that most union members did not have any sense of an ‘independent’ union that would pay its own way without government funding … I have always said ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’ and for a union that’s got to be right, but I’m in a very small minority).” “I would just”: MS: McMaster.
25 “Now we are”: MS: McMaster.
26 “immortality stakes�
��: ML to David Williams, 1 June 1981. Wainwright, 211.
27 Atwood surpassing Laurence: In a talk (“Books That Mattered to Me”) given at the Bata Library at Trent University in 1980, ML concluded with special praise for five Canadian novels, four of them published within ten years and by men: Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion, translated into English as The Tin Flute (1947), Rudy Wiebe’s The Temptations of Big Bear (1973), Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business (1970), Timothy Findley’s The Wars (1977), and Hugh MacLennan’s Voices in Time (1980).
28 Atwood and Laurence: When Margaret Atwood learned that ML was dying, she wrote her a much-appreciated letter. In her reply of 13 November 1986, ML told her that she had been “cheering madly for” Atwood and Robertson Davies when they were finalists that year for the Booker Prize. (Wainwright, 9.) To her journal, she had earlier confided her hope that Davies would win the Booker because Atwood, being younger, would have another chance.
29 “Personally, I think”: ML to Marian Engel, 1 April 1984. MS: McMaster.
30 “… the more”: ML to Marian Engel, 12 January 1985. MS: McMaster.
31 “I am in spirit”: Journal, 6 October 1986. MS: McMaster.
32 “I find myself”: MS: McMaster.
CHAPTER TWENTY
1 “Craft displays”: ML to Adele Wiseman, 17 May 1981. MS: York.
2 “I could hardly”: ML to Adele Wiseman, 17 May 1981. MS: York.
3 “Margaret Laurence fans”: Undated but 1985.
4 “Death is so strange”: ML to Budge Wilson, 9 January 1985. MS: Budge Wilson.
5 “Of course”: Circular letter to friends, 30 January 1985. MS: Louise Kubik.
6 “I decided”: ML to Budge Wilson, 9 January 1985. MS: Budge Wilson.
7 “best interviewer”: Circular letter to friends, 30 January 1985. MS: Louise Kubik.
8 “The first thing”: Wednesday, June 27, 1984. Lakefield Chronicle, 9.
9 “This bugger”: Undated. Written on a photocopy of the offending article ML sent to Adele Wiseman.
10 “for a meeting”: ML to Malcolm Ross, 19 November 1985 (circular letter). MS: University of Toronto.
11 “TO SAY”: ML to Louise Kubik, 10 January 1986. MS: Louise Kubik.
12 “was either IT or ME”: ML to Louise Kubik, 10 January 1986. MS: Louise Kubik.
13 “To me”: Dance, 16. ML had been a staunch supporter of Lutkenhaus in the uproar following the installation of her sculpture (made in 1975 for International Women’s Year) at Bloor Street United Church for four weeks in April 1979. Of course, the disapproval heaped on Lutkenhaus reminded ML of her own difficulties with The Diviners.
14 guilt: Joan Givner has written a brilliant review-essay (“A Broken Read”) stressing the contradictory nature of Dance in Margaret Laurence Review 2–3, (1992, 1993), 26–30.
15 “enormous honour”: Circular letter, 21 March 1986. MS: University of British Columbia.
16 “Today I am sixty”: MS: McMaster. I refer to this unpublished journal many times in the following pages. When an entry is dated, I incorporate this information in the text or in the citation.
17 “I wish Bob”; “My home”: Entry for 14 August.
18 “I pray”: Entry for 14 August.
19 “I do not think”: Entry for 21 August.
20 “A lifetime”: Entry for 30 August.
21 “One thing …”: Undated entry.
22 “I have been”: MS: Mona Meredith.
23 “I am DETERMINED”: ML to Mona Meredith, 8 September 1986. MS: Mona Meredith.
24 drafts of her memoir: All dates for the various drafts are ML’s, as written out by her on the box containing the third draft. The box and typescript are now at McMaster.
25 “Please forgive me”: ML to Adele Wiseman, 12 November 1986. MS: York.
26 “Oh, kid”: Interview with Mary Adachi, February 1997.
27 “Ambiguity is”: MS: McMaster.
28 “From all reports”: MS: McMaster
29 “She dealt”: Malcolm Ross to James King, 30 April 1996. MS: James King.