Still, his pain at Fiona’s betrayal is keen. This is a man who relished the new freedoms of the ’60s and ’70s, who just said yes to anyone who offered, while his wife waited for him at home. Munro waits until she’s delivered this setup, evoking sympathy pangs for the devoted husband, before she releases the information that during his marriage, Grant has been extraordinarily untrue. When Grant does see his wife again, she’s fallen in love with a fellow dementia patient and barely recognizes her husband. The nursing home’s policy is that he not visit for one month so she can settle in. It involves Grant, a retired academic who reluctantly takes his beloved wife, Fiona, to a nursing home when her dementia worsens. Take for an example of her structural genius “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” probably the most romantic story Munro has ever written (adapted into the 2006 film Away From Her).
She’ll start a story from the perspective of a child who hasn’t been born yet (“My Mother’s Dream”) or from a minor character, such as a station agent, who doesn’t appear again (“Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage”).
Munro relentlessly surprises, using clever, switchback structures that dart between perspectives and time periods to repeatedly evade readers’ expectations and ultimately deepen and complicate their appreciation of the characters’ relationships.
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