Wigtime by Alice Munro
"Wigtime" by Alice Munro is a poignant exploration of friendship, memory, and the complexities of life choices. The story follows Anita, a divorced woman who returns to her hometown of Walley to care for her ailing mother. During her stay, she reconnects with Margot, a childhood friend, and together they reflect on their shared past as farm girls near Lake Huron in the late 1940s. Their reminiscences include high school dreams, domestic life, and the stark realities they faced, including Margot's difficult upbringing with an abusive father.
As the narrative unfolds, both women reveal their unspoken truths, particularly Margot's relationship with Reuel, the school bus driver, which was marred by infidelity. The story portrays their individual journeys as they navigate the challenges of adulthood, motherhood, and personal sacrifice. Despite the hardships they face, Munro suggests a sense of acceptance as they find a measure of happiness in their current lives. Ultimately, "Wigtime" captures the bittersweet nature of memory and the enduring bonds of friendship amidst life's complexities.
On this Page
Wigtime by Alice Munro
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1989 (collected in Friend of My Youth, 1990)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
The longer, looser structure of “Wigtime” suggests the mounting complexity of Munro’s work. When Anita, now divorced, comes home to Walley to care for her dying mother, she reconnects with her friend Margot, whom she has not seen in thirty years. Both were once farm girls near Lake Huron, coming of age in the late 1940’s, and they recall high school life, wedding fantasies, and the cups of steaming coffee as they waited at Teresa Gault’s grocery for her husband Reuel, the school bus driver. Teresa, a French war bride, spoke to them bluntly, sometimes alarming Anita, who was uncomfortable yet fascinated by details of sex and miscarriage.
The two friends have not confessed the painful truths of their lives before. Margot used to make her life with an abusive father sound like a slapstick comedy, but while Anita was hospitalized with appendicitis, Margot began a relationship with Reuel and eventually married him, abandoning her dream of becoming a nurse. When she was warned that Reuel was unfaithful to her, as he had once been to Teresa, she disguised herself as a hippie to spy on him with their young baby-sitter. From her discovery of this affair, she has negotiated a new house and the comfortable life she presently enjoys. Both Anita and Margot have survived, as has Teresa in her own way, housed in the county home’s psychiatric wing. All have settled for their present lives, and Munro points out with characteristic restraint, “They are fairly happy.”
Bibliography
Franzen, Jonathan. “Alice’s Wonderland.” The New York Times Book Review, November 14, 2004, 1, 14-16.
Howells, Coral Ann. Alice Munro. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1998.
McCulloch, Jeanne, and Mona Simpson. “The Art of Fiction CXXXVII.” Paris Review 131 (Summer, 1994): 226-264.
Moore, Lorrie. “Leave Them and Love Them.” The Atlantic Monthly 294, no. 5 (December, 2004): 125.
Munro, Sheila. Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up with Alice Munro. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001.
Ross, Catherine Sheldrick. Alice Munro: A Double Life. Toronto: ECW Press, 1992.
Simpson, Mona. “A Quiet Genius.” The Atlantic Monthly 288, no. 5 (December, 2001): 126.