Alice Munro gives up writing?

Bookninja pretty much has the same reaction I did to this Edmonton Journal article on what Alice Munro said at a Toronto fundraiser last night: say it isn’t so! But apparently, the fact that her next book, the short story collection THE VIEW FROM CASTLE ROCK, will be her last.

In her contribution to the volume, Munro cites a tremor in her writing nerves in the face of constant interruptions and advancing age. (She will be 75 next month.) She says she can quit writing “in the interests of a manageable life” and with the knowledge that it’s rare for outstanding work to be produced in a author’s later years, “so one or two books fewer won’t really be anybody’s loss.”

That’s probably the understatement of the 21st Century. What else can you say about one of literature’s greats?

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