story: “Night”

author: Alice Munro

year: 2012 from Dear Life 

where: Quarantine

note: This story made me think about what Zadie Smith said about the difference between the past and now, and how in the past, folks discussed things so much less. I really liked the brief rumination on psychiatry near the end.

a line: “I knew now that he had not heard me getting up and walking around on just this one night. The person whose livestock was on the premises, whose earnings such as they were lay all close by, and who kept a handgun in his desk drawer, was certainly going to stir at the slightest creeping on the stairs and the easiest turning of a knob.”

theme(s): Mother daughter, Father daughter, Coming of age, dreams, therapy