A few pages from the end of "White Dump", just when the reader is wondering when the story's title will be explained, Alice Munro offers it up, having anticipated the reader's every twitch. It's worth the wait, so it mustn't be spoiled, but you will have understood one aspect of its
I sat with this story for a good while. I re-read it. More than once. Let it sink in as familiar. I leafed through it on other occasions, when I was between tasks at my desk. I randomly picked out passages and murmured them aloud. I sat and stared out
If this were the first Munro story that you read, by the time you reached the end of "1. Anonymous Letters", you might be shaking your head, for that segment seems to just stop. If you've been reading Munro stories for awhile, however, you'll be settling your chin in your
Just as "Jesse and Meribeth" seems to be a story about MaryBeth but really reveals so much more about Jessie herself, "Eskimo" appears to be about all the people on the plane with Mary Jo, but it's really all about Mary Jo. Nonetheless, it begins with talk of the passengers
Friendships between schoolgirls like Jessie and MaryBeth -- for that is how their names are properly spelled, although they like to pretend to be Jesse and Meribeth -- are complicated. It's not the first time Alice Munro has grappled with the subject. The intricacies of relationships between schoolchildren also feature
