Who Do You Think You Are? (book)

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Book of short stories by Alice Munro

LanguageEnglish

GenreLiterary fiction, Short story cycle

Who Do You Think You Are?
First edition
Author	Alice Munro
Language	English
Genre	Literary fiction, Short story cycle
Publisher	Macmillan of Canada
Publication date	1978
Publication place	Canada
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	206 pp (hardcover edition) & 272 pp (paperback edition)
ISBN	978-0-7705-1712-0 (hardcover edition)
OCLC	5099798
Dewey Decimal	813/.5/4
LC Class	PZ4.M969 Wh PR9199.3.M8

Who Do You Think You Are? is a book of short stories by Alice Munro, recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature, published by Macmillan of Canada in 1978. It won Munro her second Governor General's Award for Fiction in English,^[1] and short-listed for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1980 under its international title, The Beggar Maid (subtitled Stories of Flo and Rose).^[2]

The book has received significant critical attention. It has been described as an eminent example of the integrated short fiction cycle,^[3] with some early critics going so far as to suggest that the stories might constitute a novel.^[4] Others have argued that the tension between the larger scale structure of the book and the individual nature of the stories is essential to Munro's sophisticated literary fiction.^[5]

"Royal Beatings"
"Privilege"
"Half a Grapefruit"
"Wild Swans"
"The Beggar Maid"
"Mischief"
"Providence"
"Simon's Luck"
"Spelling"
"Who Do You Think You Are?"

Summary

As suggested by the title, the theme of identity is central to the collection. It could be described in relation to the tradition of Bildungsroman, but

As a text about aging into midlife, Who Do You Think You Are? does more than simply range beyond the “season of youth” that is the traditional preserve of the Bildungsroman [...]; it draws attention to age itself as something of an unremarked category in a form ostensibly concerned with getting older.^[5]

The central figure of the cycle, Rose, grows up in a small town, abused by her father, and living in an impoverished home.

In "Half a Grapefruit", Rose begins attending a school in the more affluent part of town. In class, when asked what she ate for breakfast, she lies and says "half a grapefruit" rather than revealing her mundane, considerably less glamorous meal. The lie haunts her, and she is embarrassed by her upbringing.

Rose ends up winning a scholarship to attend university. On a train ride to Toronto, she is molested by a clergyman; she chooses to ignore this incident, but it has irreparable damage on her future relationships with men. At university she meets her husband who has a medieval perspective of women—he is drawn to her because he sees her as a damsel in distress. Her marriage eventually ends, and she has to juggle being a mother, meeting other men, and her acting career.

One of her significant relationships is with Simon, a charming man she meets at a friend's house. The two spend the weekend together, and she grows attached to him (she describes it as developing an understanding for Simon's many personas). He disappears unexpectedly afterwards. She later discovers that Simon has died.

The final few short stories have her returning home; this gives her a chance to close the chapter of her life involving her complicated relationship with her stepmother, Flo.

References

↑ "Past GG Winners 1978". canadacouncil.ca. Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
↑ "The Booker Prize 1980". Booker Prize Foundation. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
↑ Lynch, Gerald (2001). The One and the Many: English-Canadian Short Story Cycles. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. xiv. doi:10.3138/9781442681941. ISBN 0-8020-3511-6.
↑ Warwick, Susan J. (1984). "Growing Up: The Novels of Alice Munro". Essays on Canadian Writing. 29 ((Summer 1984)): 204–225.
1 2 Jamieson, Sara (2013). "Surprising Developments": Midlife in Alice Munro's Who Do You Think You Are?". Canadian Literature. 217: 54–69. p. 62: [Peggy] Martin argues that it is precisely through their "insistent focus on change" that Munro's stories figure the acceptance of the aging self (83); in Who Do You Think You Are?, however, this is accompanied by an equally insistent focus on continuity. Gerald Lynch's definition of the short story cycle [in The One and the Many: English-Canadian Short Story Cycles (2001)] as a genre particularly suited to registering tensions between "contrary pressures" suggests the extent to which the form of Munro's text enables its representation of aging into midlife as a process of negotiating the competing forces of continuity and disjunction (18). Individual stories often emphasize the way in which temporal existence produces baffling discrepancies between present and past selves...

Lynch, Gerald. "No Honey, I’m Home: Place Over Love in Alice Munro’s Short Story Cycle, Who Do You Think You Are?." Canadian Literature 160 (1999): 73–98.
Martin, Peggy. “‘What a Pathetic Old Tart’: Alice Munro's Older Women.” English Studies in Canada 24.1 (1998): 83–92. https://doi.org/10.1353/esc.1988.0006
Who Do You Think You Are? at the Literary Encyclopedia

v t e Works by Alice Munro
Collections	Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) Lives of Girls and Women (1971) Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You (1974) Who Do You Think You Are? (1978) The Moons of Jupiter (1982) The Progress of Love (1986) Friend of My Youth (1990) Open Secrets (1994) The Love of a Good Woman (1998) Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001) Runaway (2004) The View from Castle Rock (2006) Too Much Happiness (2009) Dear Life (2012)
Short stories	"Boys and Girls" "How I Met My Husband" "The Moons of Jupiter" "Free Radicals" List of short stories by Alice Munro
Compilations	Selected Stories (1996: 1968-1994) No Love Lost (2003: 1978–1999) Vintage Munro (2004: 1982–2001) Carried Away: A Personal Selection Of Stories (2006: 1978–2004)
Film adaptations	Boys and Girls (1983) Martha, Ruth and Edie (1988, segment "How I Met My Husband") Edge of Madness (2002) Away from Her (2006) Hateship, Loveship (2013) Julieta (2016)

v t e Winners of the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction
1930s	Bertram Brooker, Think of the Earth (1936) Laura Salverson, The Dark Weaver (1937) Gwethalyn Graham, Swiss Sonata (1938) Franklin D. McDowell, The Champlain Road (1939)
1940s	Ringuet, Thirty Acres (1940) Alan Sullivan, Three Came to Ville Marie (1941) G. Herbert Sallans, Little Man (1942) Thomas Head Raddall, The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek (1943) Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven (1944) Hugh MacLennan, Two Solitudes (1945) Winifred Bambrick, Continental Revue (1946) Gabrielle Roy, The Tin Flute (1947) Hugh MacLennan, The Precipice (1948) Philip Child, Mr. Ames Against Time (1949)
1950s	Germaine Guèvremont, The Outlander (1950) Morley Callaghan, The Loved and the Lost (1951) David Walker, The Pillar (1952) David Walker, Digby (1953) Igor Gouzenko, The Fall of a Titan (1954) Lionel Shapiro, The Sixth of June (1955) Adele Wiseman, The Sacrifice (1956) Gabrielle Roy, Street of Riches (1957) Colin McDougall, Execution (1958) Hugh MacLennan, The Watch That Ends the Night (1959)
1960s	Brian Moore, The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960) Malcolm Lowry, Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place (1961) Kildare Dobbs, Running to Paradise (1962) Hugh Garner, Hugh Garner's Best Stories (1963) Douglas LePan, The Deserter (1964) [no award] (1965) Margaret Laurence, A Jest of God (1966) [no award] (1967) Alice Munro, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) Robert Kroetsch, The Studhorse Man (1969)
1970s	Dave Godfrey, The New Ancestors (1970) Mordecai Richler, St. Urbain's Horseman (1971) Robertson Davies, The Manticore (1972) Rudy Wiebe, The Temptations of Big Bear (1973) Margaret Laurence, The Diviners (1974) Brian Moore, The Great Victorian Collection (1975) Marian Engel, Bear (1976) Timothy Findley, The Wars (1977) Alice Munro, Who Do You Think You Are? (1978) Jack Hodgins, The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne (1979)
1980s	George Bowering, Burning Water (1980) Mavis Gallant, Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981) Guy Vanderhaeghe, Man Descending (1982) Leon Rooke, Shakespeare's Dog (1983) Josef Škvorecký, The Engineer of Human Souls (1984) Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (1985) Alice Munro, The Progress of Love (1986) M. T. Kelly, A Dream Like Mine (1987) David Adams Richards, Nights Below Station Street (1988) Paul Quarrington, Whale Music (1989)
1990s	Nino Ricci, Lives of the Saints (1990) Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey (1991) Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient (1992) Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries (1993) Rudy Wiebe, A Discovery of Strangers (1994) Greg Hollingshead, The Roaring Girl (1995) Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Englishman's Boy (1996) Jane Urquhart, The Underpainter (1997) Diane Schoemperlen, Forms of Devotion (1998) Matt Cohen, Elizabeth and After (1999)
2000s	Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost (2000) Richard B. Wright, Clara Callan (2001) Gloria Sawai, A Song for Nettie Johnson (2002) Douglas Glover, Elle (2003) Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindness (2004) David Gilmour, A Perfect Night to Go to China (2005) Peter Behrens, The Law of Dreams (2006) Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero (2007) Nino Ricci, The Origin of Species (2008) Kate Pullinger, The Mistress of Nothing (2009)
2010s	Dianne Warren, Cool Water (2010) Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers (2011) Linda Spalding, The Purchase (2012) Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries (2013) Thomas King, The Back of the Turtle (2014) Guy Vanderhaeghe, Daddy Lenin and Other Stories (2015) Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016) Joel Thomas Hynes, We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night (2017) Sarah Henstra, The Red Word (2018) Joan Thomas, Five Wives (2019)
2020s	Michelle Good, Five Little Indians (2020) Norma Dunning, Tainna (2021) Sheila Heti, Pure Colour (2022) Anuja Varghese, Chrysalis (2023) Jordan Abel, Empty Spaces (2024) Kyle Edwards, Small Ceremonies (2025)

Authority control databases	Open Library 2

Who Do You Think You Are? (book)

Summary

References

Further reading

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