This is an ensemble piece. Munro opens the whole town up before she’s through. In the triad of tales that I’ve reviewed; this is the last, Munro puts into play a school of characters, like a school of fish. I feel like I’m looking into a koi pond, only it’s people. There’s so much, there’s so much that I can’t specify it all. Leah can only take an evening job because during the day she has to help her mother look after the younger children. So you can sense how burdened the dutiful daughter is by obligations, day and evening. The feeling that something was about to break out was under the surface as I read.

I don’t think that Alice Munro writes stories that are actually short. There’s a wealth of detail about the hospital and town and the people in it. A short story writer of Alice Munro’s platinum standard is always going to enumerate the facts. Reading one of her stories is like laying out an extensive dossier in front of you. A full security report on the nature of human character replete with incidents, details about appearance, what was said and done.