Dear Life, by Alice Munro

The significant moments in Alice Munro’s latest collection of short stories tend to creep up behind you and hit you in the back of the head with a brick. You read one – you get to the final lines – you think, “I don’t get it” or “oh good grief, is that what I think it is? – you go back and reread it. Then you find the pivotal moment, the line where there storyline changed, where she started the build-up to the climax, or put in the key to the puzzle. It takes patience and skill to construct stories that way, and Munro manages to combine this almost architectural precision with a psychologist’s insight into relationships, emotions and people’s reaction to major life events. (Continue reading…)