Just as "Jesse and Meribeth" seems to be a story about MaryBeth but really reveals so much more about Jessie herself, "Eskimo" appears to be about all the people on the plane with Mary Jo, but it's really all about Mary Jo. Nonetheless, it begins with talk of the passengers
A dozen stories, nearly all about women and girls who are deaf, Louise Stern being the fourth generation of her own family to be born deaf. See all those dots on the cover? Sure, more than a dozen, so imagine them as characters, not stories. Then imagine that each of the
Friendships between schoolgirls like Jessie and MaryBeth -- for that is how their names are properly spelled, although they like to pretend to be Jesse and Meribeth -- are complicated. It's not the first time Alice Munro has grappled with the subject. The intricacies of relationships between schoolchildren also feature
The first time that I finished reading this story, I thought it was all about happiness. No doubt influenced by the last line and by the knowledge of later Alice Munro stories pulling that theme to their hearts. (The collection Too Much Happiness immediately comes to mind.) After I read
The characters in Yasuko Thanh's stories are whirlwinded out of their routine lives, whether because they stepped into the chaos or because it was heading straight for them. They nurse their lovers through illness (or don't). They make remedies from flowers and roots (or smoke them). They see ghosts (or
