"Runaway" by Alice Munro

I'm almost ashamed to admit that this was my first Alice Munro experience, and I choose that term with purpose.  I didn't read Munro; I experienced it.  Because the entire time you are reading her, you are also set alight with the flames of awe and jealousy.

How did she do this?  How did she do all of this in the first two pages? How did she make me feel so mournful and tired as I sit at my lovely pub table with a glass of hot coffee?  How did she transport me to this horse farm and make me love a goat?  How does she manage to maintain effortless control over not only the characters and her perfectly paced plot, but also the weather, the quirks of various animals, the details of mobile home carpeting, and the particular smell of apple-scented soap?  How does she switch narrators without so much as flinching?  How does she manifest Clark, Carla, and Sylvia in an alternate universe in which they continue to exist after you are done reading?  How does she make you keep thinking about Carla's hair, or Clark's cruelty, or the damn goat?

I am the granddaughter of a frugal, Depression-raised Polish grandmother who saves the other half of her pickles and ginger ales.  Opulence makes me uncomfortable.  I can't say I enjoyed this story because it was just too good.  Munro's mastery is distracting.  Imagine trying to get dressed in the morning with a Picasso hanging on your wall or a 10-carat Kardashian-sized diamond on your ring finger.

Munro 101: She is not to be read; she is to be experienced.

"A Father's Story" by Andre Dubus

Last weekend I attended a short story session at the Newburyport Literary Festival where the speakers were, of course, asked to name some of their favorite short stories and authors.  

"A Father's Story," by Andre Dubus, was discussed because of the advice Dubus had given to one of the speakers: write toward the surprise.  

I love a good surprise and I've never read a thing by Dubus, I'm ashamed to admit.  

I read and I read.  I read till the end.  I looked around me in the silent library.  Where was the surprise?  It is a quiet story, as peaceful as a lullaby.  There are beautiful moments and a profound discussion of faith.  But surprise?  Shock?  Not for me.

As I told my husband about the story this evening, he asked me when the story had first been published (1987 I believe).  Would the surprise have been shocking then?  Am I unshockable?  Are we all?

I compared the climax of the story with my new favorite TV show, Pretty Little Liars.  What took place in the Dubus story is a day at the beach for those characters.  They've seen that level of surprise and stress a million times over, as have I, as a loyal fan.  My best friend and I refer to it as TV crack.

I admit this with a fair amount of chagrin because this story is a work of art.  

"It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment.  What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future, and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live in the moment at hand."  True.  Relevant.  Precise.  

My advice?  Read Dubus to return to a simpler time.  Read it to meditate on faith and family, on courage and great writing.  Take a break from addictive stimulation and ponder the simplicity of 1987.