Paradoxically, Morgan Holly, owner of the Capital movie theatre in Maverley, who occupies the opening scene of this short story does not leave the town, but all of the other characters in this tale do leave Maverley.
Random House, 2012
“And before long he found himself outside, pretending that that he had as ordinary and good a reason as anybody else to put one foot ahead of the other.”
Leaving and losing: these themes overshadow the arriving, the staying and the keeping.
Even Morgan — the theatre owner and projectionist who stays — has to wrestle with this, as the story begins with his loss of a ticket-taker, his need to replace this young woman, who is leaving her job to have a baby.
(It’s important to note that one character’s disruption is another’s excitement; this young woman is having a baby, presumably a time of promise and anticipation, but Morgan experiences it as a time of frustration and upset.)
“He might have expected this — she had been married for half a year, and in those days you were supposed to get out of the public eye before you began to show — but he so disliked change and the idea of people having private lives that he was taken by surprise.”
These private lives: they unfold behind closed doors in Maverley, in ways that are not always apparent to others — like Morgan — and they also unfold on movie screens and in short stories.
The theatre isn’t soundproofed and the ticket-taker can hear the stories whether she can see the screen or not, just as the reader can catch some of the details of the characters’ lives whether she is with them in Maverley or not.
Leah is the new ticket-taker. In the Bible — and Leah’s family is religious — Leah is the woman who marries a man who had worked for many years to gain Leah’s sister’s hand, and her father gave Leah instead; the husband had to work that many years again for the woman he had originally planned to marry. Leah is unexpectedly disruptive, both in the biblical story and in “Leaving Maverley”.
Ray Elliot is the night policeman when the reader meets him, when he is introduced as an escort for Leah, whose father does not want her walking home alone on Saturday nights.
But Ray has a back story, the bulk of which is devoted to how he met his wife Isabel and how they came to Maverley.
Ray and Isabel’s history, including their arrival in Maverley, is back story, but the actual story, is about his and her (and other characters’) leaving Maverley. (You can see all the layers here, right?)
The reader is engaged in the details of these details of private life through a gradual immersion, back story and story intermingling in this small town.
Morgan is not the only character who would prefer to view the world from a safe distance, from the relative security of the projection booth.
Leah, too, has a relatively sheltered view of the world when she begins working as a ticket-taker. And Ray’s wife, Isabel, lives a secluded life, in which her home with Ray gradually becomes the outer limits of her world, so that his leaving the house is almost as big an event as their leaving Maverley (eventually). As the story plays out, Ray’s existence, too, is increasingly removed from the world without.
Just as Ray sums up the movies and the plots that stand out for him, it is tempting to summarize the plot elements of “Leaving Maverley” (and to discuss the different kinds of losing and leaving in the story). But, as often as not, only part of the plot is known.
“Still, she was gone. In a not entirely unusual or unhopeful way, she was gone. Absurdly, he felt offended. As if she could have shown some inkling, at least, that there was another part of her life.”
What nobody knows? Those other parts of lives? That unknowing, that absence, occupies a good amount of “Leaving Maverley”.
Note: This is part of a series of posts on Alice Munro’s stories, as I read through her work-to-date. She is one of my MRE authors and, until now, this has been a chronological reading project, but I was unable to resist inserting her most recent collection. Please feel free to check the schedule and join in, for the series, or for a single story. This story is the third in Dear Life, with next Sunday reserved for “Gravel” and the following Wednesday for “Haven”. Wednesdays and Sundays for Alice Munro, for March and April 2013.
I love the layers in this story. Initially it is Morgan and the ticket taker. Then the ticket taker is replaced by Leah and Ray, the policeman, is needed to get Leah home on Saturday nights so then there are Leah’s parents and the explanations. Next along comes Isabel and she is upset about the restrictions on Leah and so the complexity of relations between the characters begins. The comparison is often made but is so true: it is rather like peeling an onion. In addition then to the characters’ relationships with one another are their individual natures: Morgan’s dislike of the public, Leah’s burden resulting from her parents’ religious choices, Isabel’s illness and Ray’s need to help her manage that illness and its effects upon their lives. And so the story grows and grows. Although the relationships are complex and interesting as is a study of Ray and Isobel’s marriage compared to Leah’s own marital experiences, for me the story was primarily about loss. It began with Morgan’s small loss or losses ( he lost two ticket takers) and advanced to Ray and Isabel’s loss and then to Ray’s loss. And Leah experienced major losses as well while the three main characters all lost Maverley and what it represented to them. The degree of loss, as you have indicated, is not always known, has that “unknowing, that absence” about it and one feels the weight of it pull one’s body into a deeper place. I found the ending very powerful with a strange uplifting aspect to it. So insightful, so realistic and so simply stated.
It’s true: we, as readers, sink deeper into this story with every paragraph. I think that some might even find it sloppy if they missed the subtle layering as the story progresses. I mean, on the surface, it begins with Morgan, who seems to have very little to do with the story and fades, almost immediately, into the backstory. And, yet, as you’ve outlined, if he hadn’t been withdrawn socially and hadn’t needed a ticket-taker to manage that, none of the other events would have played out in the same way. I felt differently about the end on each reading, but there is a glimmer of something uplifting when Ray manages to settle on that detail he thought he had forgotten. Perhaps we are to take comfort in the fact that, regardless of what we have lost, it remains found in memories, as imperfect and unreliable as they may be; even the smallest of details can hold a great deal that might, otherwise, have been lost. This felt like a relatively short story in the collection, but I wonder if it might not be one that sticks in my mind nonetheless.
After reading your review last week, I bought this book, and am going to get started with it right away. I am thinking one short story a day will be my goal, and when I am through I can discuss them with you!!
Oooo, I do hope you find them interesting and enjoyable. I think one a day would be perfect: do you have a ritual planned for it, with a cup of tea or a favourite chair or something? It sounds so organized…