Munro, Alice. The Love of a Good Woman: Stories. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
I have always been attracted to short stories in the summer. For some reason short stories just work better during those months of busy.
The first story, “The Love of a Good Woman, starts off with the exploration of the different adolescent reactions to an apparent accidental drowning of the town’s ophthalmologist. Three boys, with three very different home lives, struggle with the knowledge of this death. Each of them takes a different view on how to tell an adult about the accident. From there the story takes on an unusual twist.
All of the stories explore different human connections. Unfaithful marriages, nursing the dying, landlord and tenant, mother and child…each relationship is riddled with conflict and emotion. Munro captures these relationships so well they seem to be her specialty.
Most unusual line (from ‘Cortes Island’), “My instinct was to lie to her about anything” (p 128).
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the very first chapter called, “A…is for Alice” (p 1).
~*LunaSea*~ 