The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career (Classic Reprint)

by L. M. Montgomery

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

The Alpine Path, though autobiographical, is just as charming a story as Montgomery’s novels. She writes in a confidential tone, sharing her secrets, struggles, and dreams with her readers as though they are her friends. Peeping through her words is a little of Anne Shirley, clear in the way Montgomery thinks and enjoys life. She admits that she loved to name places as much as her most-famous character, such as the “Lake of Shining Waters.”

Montgomery reveals that many of events in her books were inspired by real events. A liniment-flavored cake was real, though she was not the one who baked it! She makes sure to specify whether the events made it into Anne, Emily, The Story Girl, or another one of her works, so readers can find them and laugh all over again if they would like. Her own life is just as interesting as her fiction and would have made its own delightful novel!

Also evident in her personality are sparks of Emily, in the determined way she approached and pursued her career as a writer. But she looks beyond her own success and offers encouraging words and advice for other potential writers in describing her failures, joys, and methods. Montgomery is clearly a writer who loved writing for the sake of art. She admits that at one point it had never occurred to her she would be paid for her work; she wanted only to see it in print and have others see it, as well. That spirit, even halfway through her career, seems not to have died, which is probably why all her books, including this one, are so charming and full of life.