The View from Castle Rock

I look forward to reading this, Alice Munro’s latest, The View from Castle Rock, a memoir but not a memoir: “I was doing something closer to what a memoir does—exploring a life, my own life.” This appeals to me because she comes from the same neck of the woods as me, southern Ontario, and both our backgrounds are Calvinist, hers Scottish, mine Dutch. Slate glows:

“Critics have often marveled at the novellike density and sweep of Munro's short stories, at how she manages to create the impression that actions have ripened into consequences in the fullness of time. This, I think, is how she does it: by ending her tales in ways that could not have been anticipated yet feel so right we're forced to read each story again, scouring the text for hints. Munro doesn't drop many. Her style is classical, her presence remote. If we're going to find the solutions to her puzzles, we'll have to find them in the depths of what has happened, not in her rare moments of commentary.”