When her son was young they scoured books for information on obscure and isolated islands like Tristan da Cunha. Here Munro comments on the difficulty of possessing specialized knowledge and how this era of the internet diminishes that knowledge. The boy becomes a strange, troubled, possibly insane adult, who disappears for years at a time. In “Deep-Holes,” the character Sally has to deal with a son, who at age 9 falls into a deep hole and is rescued by his father. Reading becomes a compulsion: one has to find out what is going to happen. The language as always is crisp and clear, like the tinkling of bells. The collection is vintage Munro in that many of the stories are novels, covering years and lifetimes, condensed to their tasty essence. Her new collection, Too Much Happiness, contains ten delectable stories that are as good as anything she has written in her long career. Her reply was, “Bill, everything is funny.” I said to her after the reading, “It never occurred to me that your story was funny.” The audience laughed heartily at the story Alice read, one I had read in all seriousness. I purchased her book, I believe it was “The Moons of Jupiter,” and thoroughly enjoyed it, but it had not occurred to me that most of the stories contained a lot of humour. I’ll never forget what Alice Munro said to me the first time we met. Too Much Happiness (Douglas Gibson Books / M&S)
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