The Mind's Eye explores the ways in which Alice Munro's

first collection of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades ,

establishes the themes that would continue to animate

the work of this Nobel Prize-winning Canadian author

over the ensuing forty years. Munro is fascinated by the

role of the senses, particularly sight, in the perception

of the world; by the link between the real world and

the world of the imagination; by the way the past

haunts the present through unreliable memories that

change over the course of time ; and by a sense that

secrets and mysteries can be experienced but never

entirely understood. Several of the stories - such as

"An Ounce of Cure" and "Day of the Butterfly" - read

as the narratives of a writer at the beginning of her

career, experimenting with the genre of the short story

and dealing with autobiographical material from her

childhood, youth, and young adulthood. Others - such

as "Walker Brothers Cowboy", "Images" and "The Peace

of Utrecht" - already reveal Munro's mastery of form,

as well as the questions that would become her central

preoccupations.

The book's seven chapters address key aspects of

Munro's collection: genre; the Gothic and the grotesque;

memory and temporality; growing up; gender, mothers

and fathers; class; and the artist and society. Although

these themes run across several, or in some cases most,

of the stories, a few representative stories are given

close readings in each chapter, providing an analysis

of the stories as distinct narrative units.