Guernica Editions

J.R. (Tim) Struthers (Editor)

This rich volume begins with a very good-humoured memoir, “Alice Munro: Not Bad Short Story Writer,” by Munro's renowned Canadian publisher, Douglas Gibson, followed by powerful autobiographical pieces by fiction writer Jack Hodgins, playwright Judith Thompson, poet John B. Lee, poet-playwright-teacher James Reaney, and local historian Reg Thompson. Overall, the twenty contributions to Alice Munro Country, including a previously unpublished interview with Munro by J.R. (Tim) Struthers and a superb essay by George Elliott Clarke on Munro's Lives of Girls and Women, take a cultural or historical or personal approach, while also providing judicious readings of the subtle literary dimensions of key Munro works.

When I reach the Pearly Gates, I know that I have the perfect password to get in. Even if St. Peter is at his grumpy, bureaucratic worst -- “So what have you ever done in your miserable, selfish life to deserve getting into Heaven?” -- I can waltz in simply by saying: “I kept Alice Munro writing short stories.” -- Douglas Gibson