The fate of “Hagar,” as Margaret was to show quite literally, was still up in the air when she and the children stopped over with us in Winnipeg, on their way to England well into 1962. She was terribly worried about the practical things attendant on the move. Her baggage, for instance, was overweight, and she could not afford to pay a surcharge on the further flight. So she packed a big carton with some of her children’s toys and other gear, including, I recall, her son David’s running shoes, threw in the manuscript of “Hagar,” which I had spent the night reading, and addressed the parcel to her forwarding address in London. Then she invited my mother to go for a walk with her to the post office on Selkirk Avenue, and consigned the only copy of the novel to chance and the postal service. In later years she was to remember that gesture with rueful laughter. Not until she returned from that walk did she even realize what she had done. Luckily for her readers, fate spun the coin in our favour. When the package did finally arrive she was ready for it.
From London, 25 November, 1962:
“… By the way, the parcel from Wpg arrived, with my novel manuscript. I don’t think it reads too badly. It’s kind of an offbeat story, in a way – which really means that I personally find it very interesting but I have grave doubts that many people would share my point of view. But basically, Adele… it is written as I wanted to do it.… I had begun to try to make it into something that it was not intended to be – in order to widen its appeal. I only succeeded in turning it into something bloody awful. I threw away, the other day, all the re-written parts and will stick to the first draft, come hell or high water. The old lady knew what she was doing when she told me her life story – at least, that is what I feel now, anyway. We will see.”
Margaret’s letters for the next month or so are filled with normal writerly concerns. The crisis of confidence is over. Though her claims for what she is doing are modest still, she states them with a new-found forcefulness and the exuberance of one whose work is going well. Most important, she has taken her stand. She will often again have doubts about her writing, but they will never again be such paralysing doubts imposed from without.
“If one is misled… into following advice, however well meant, which conflicts with the true basic concept of the thing itself, then that is a kind of betrayal of oneself.… I guess, Adele, the whole absurd thing was that for a whole year I was making some kind of lunatic attempt to convince myself that I must be wrong about that novel. This novel means such a hell of a lot to me, simply because it is me. One wants it to be read with comprehension. I don’t mean the characters are me, naturally, although some of them are, in some ways, as must surely always be the case.… I finished the revisions on New Year’s Eve, which I took to be a good omen. I am now in an agony of apprehension about it is it too obvious, or is it not clearly enough stated, etc. But there comes a time when you have to let it go.… You know, Adele, it is written so much in Hagar’s voice that sometimes I think it needs to be read aloud. That was another insane thing I considered doing, months ago when I was in the depths – re-writing it in the 3rd person. Impossible, however she is speaking; that is simply a fact.… Anyway, the way I feel about Hagar at the moment is that if Macmillan’s thinks it is unpublishable, I will feel damn disappointed, but I will still disagree with them. ‘Here stand I; God help me, I can do no other.’ I have always been very drawn to those words of Martin Luther’s. Imagine what it must have taken, to say that in the face of the whole Establishment of the western world, when it is so difficult to say it even of issues on an infinitely smaller scale (however, not smaller to me). So – we will see.” [2 January, 1963]
And, on another day of good omen:
“14 February – VALENTINE’S DAY
Dear Adele:
ALAN MACLEAN (MACMILLAN’S) LIKES HAGAR! HE LIKES IT! CAN IT BE TRUE? He has just phoned, and I am in something like a state of shock.”
Having myself gone through something similar, I find it interesting that after being unable to touch the book for a full year, when she went back to work on it Margaret took only a little over a month to complete a manuscript that was immediately acceptable to her publishers. One thing they all objected to, however, was her protem title, “Hagar.” She herself wished she could find a title that would more adequately express her theme. “I may have to tackle the entire Old Testament.” [18 February, 1963]
Finally, on 20 September, 1963:
“They (Knopf) don’t like ‘Hagar’ either, and have suggested either ‘Mrs. Shipley’ or ‘Old Lady Shipley,’ both of which are so terrible, in my opinion, that they don’t bear thinking about. Macmillan had felt some doubt about ‘Hagar,’ too, so when this letter arrived with Knopf’s suggestions, I brooded violently over the whole thing, and was suddenly struck by the obviously right title, and I now prefer it to ‘Hagar,’ and am astonished that it did not occur to me six months ago, as it is an image which occurs in the first sentence of the novel and recurs throughout the book, and it is completely suitable, etc. ‘The Stone Angel’ – do you think it okay?”
The Author
MARGARET LAURENCE was born in Neepawa, Manitoba, in 1926. Upon graduation from Winnipeg’s United College in 1947, she took a job as a reporter for the Winnipeg Citizen.
From 1950 until 1957 Laurence lived in Africa, the first two years in Somalia, the next five in Ghana, where her husband, a civil engineer, was working. She translated Somali poetry and prose during this time, and began her career as a fiction writer with stories set in Africa.
When Laurence returned to Canada in 1957, she settled in Vancouver, where she devoted herself to fiction with a Ghanaian setting: in her first novel, This Side Jordan, and in her first collection of short fiction, The Tomorrow-Tamer. Her two years in Somalia were the subject of her memoir, The Prophet’s Camel Bell.
Separating from her husband in 1962, Laurence moved to England, which became her home for a decade, the time she devoted to the creation of five books about the fictional town of Manawaka, patterned after her birthplace, and its people: The Stone Angel, A Jest of God, The Fire-Dwellers, A Bird in the House, and The Diviners.
Laurence settled in Lakefield, Ontario, in 1974. She complemented her fiction with essays, book reviews, and four children’s books. Her many honours include two Governor General’s Awards for Fiction and more than a dozen honorary degrees.
Margaret Laurence died in Lakefield, Ontario, in 1987.
Hubert Aquin
Next Episode
Margaret Atwood
The Edible Woman
Good Bones
Murder in the Dark
Surfacing
Yves Beauchemin
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Earle Birney
Turvey
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Digging Up the Mountains
Marie-Claire Blais
Mad Shadows
A Season in the Life of Emmanuel
Fred Bodsworth
Last of the Curlews
Frances Brooke
The History of Emily Montague
Ernest Buckler
The Mountain and the Valley
Morley Callaghan
More Joy in Heaven
Such Is My Beloved
They Shall Inherit the Earth
Canadian Poetry
From the Beginnings Throug the First World War
Leonard Cohen
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The Favourite Game
Ralph Connor
Glengarry School Days
Sara Jeannette Duncan
The Imperialist
George Elliott
The Kissing Man
Marian Engel
Bear
Sylvia Fraser
Pandora
Mavis Gallant
Across the Bridge
The Moslem Wife and Other Stories
Graeme Gibson
Perpetual Motion
M. Allerdale Grainger
Woodsmen of the West
Frederick Philip Grove
Fruits of the Earth
Over Prairie Trails
A Search for America
Settlers of the Marsh
T.C. Haliburton
The Clockmaker
Paul Hiebert
Sarah Binks
Jack Hodgins
The Invention of the World
The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne
Spit Delaney’s Island
Hugh Hood
Light Shining Out of Darkness and Other Stories
Anna Brownell Jameson
Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada
A.M. Klein
The Second Scroll
Raymond Knister
White Narcissus
Margaret Laurence
A Bird in the House
The Diviners
The Fire-Dwellers
A Jest of God
The Prophet’s Camel Bell
The Stone Angel
This Side Jordan
The Tomorrow-Tamer
Stephen Leacock
Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich
Literary Lapses
My Financial Career and Other Follies
My Remarkable Uncle
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
Rosanna Leprohon
Antoinette de Mirecourt
Hugh MacLennan
Barometer Rising
Each Man’s Son
Two Solitudes
Alistair MacLeod
As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories
The Lost Salt Gift of Blood
John Marlyn
Under the Ribs of Death
Joyce Marshall
Any Time at All and Other Stories
Rohinton Mistry
A Fine Balance
Such a Long Journey
Tales from Firozsha Baag
W.O. Mitchell
Who Has Seen the Wind
L.M. Montgomery
Anne of Green Gables
Emily Climbs
Emily of New Moon
Emily’s Quest
Susanna Moodie
Life in the Clearings versus the Bush
Roughing It in the Bush
Brian Moore
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
The Luck of Ginger Coffey
Alice Munro
No Love Lost
Howard O’Hagan
Tay John
Michael Ondaatje
Running in the Family
Martha Ostenso
Wild Geese
David Adams Richards
Blood Ties
The Coming of Winter
Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace
For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down
Lives of Short Duration
Nights Below Station Street
John Richardson
Wacousta
Mordecai Richler
The Acrobats
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
A Choice of Enemies
Cocksure
The Incomparable Atuk
Joshua Then and Now
St Urbains Horseman
Son of a Smaller Hero
The Street
Ringuet
Thirty Acres
Sinclair Ross
As For Me and My House
The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories
Gabrielle Roy
The Cashier
Garden in the Wind
The Road Past Altamont
Street of Riches
The Tin Flute
Where Nests the Water Hen
Windflower
Duncan Campbell Scott
In the Village of Viger
Ernest Thompson Seton
Wild Animals I Have Known
Robert Stead
Grain
John Steffler
The Afterlife of George Cartwright
Catherine Parr Traill
The Backwoods of Canada
Jane Urquhart
The Whirlpool
Sheila Watson
Deep Hollow Creek
The Double Hook
A Father’s Kingdom
Rudy Wiebe
The Blue Mountains of China
The Temptations of Big Bear
Ethel Wilson
The Equations of Love
Hetty Dorval
The Innocent Traveller
Love and Salt Water
Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories
Swamp Angel
Adele Wiseman
Crackpot
The Sacrifice