Dear Life by Alice Munro

Dear Life is a collection of short stories by prize-winning Canadian author, Alice Munro. Many of these stories are about ordinary people who make capricious decisions which drastically change routine lives. These decisions, often involving adultery and/or disappearing, usually have detrimental effects on their own lives, as well as those of spouses, children, parents, friends and neighbors.  Young mothers slide, with astounding ease, into affairs. Men and women walk away from problems without a second thought as to who might be worried or hurt. The self-absorbed people in many of these stories change their lives and the lives around them seemingly on a whim. In contrast, the last four stories in the book, which the author says are “autobiographical in feeling,” have a theme of perseverance in the face of difficulty. In these stories, neither poverty nor loneliness nor illness nor disappointment destroys the constancy of the family. Hardship is an accepted part of life. 

Check out Dear Life @ the library!