Too Much Happiness

 Too Much Happiness is a collection of ten short stories published in 2009 by Alice Munro, the Canadian writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. I hadn’t known her name before she received the prize, but when I later found her books at a local library, I felt compelled to read her work.

I’ve read Raymond Carver before, but I’m not sure I truly enjoy short stories. They often provide only minimal description and convey so much with so few words that they can feel more difficult than novels. Still, several stories in this collection offer deep reflections on life over long stretches of time.

 

Dimensions

Doree, a chambermaid, has endured a devastating tragedy: her three young children were murdered by her mentally unstable husband. She occasionally takes the bus to visit him in prison. One day, while she is on her way there, an unexpected accident occurs…

 

Fiction

Jon and Joyce, both highly intelligent, drop out of college and start new lives. Jon learns woodworking, while Joyce becomes a music teacher. Jon later hires a woman with tattoos and a history of alcohol abuse—and eventually falls in love with her. Joyce leaves their home and lives alone in town. Decades pass. Joyce remarries a professor. At his birthday party, she meets a young writer. Later, she finds the writer’s book in a bookstore and discovers that one of the stories is about Jon, the tattooed woman, and herself. The writer turns out to be Joyce’s former music student.

 

Deep-Holes

During a family picnic, Kent, one of the sons, falls into a deep hole and breaks both legs. He eventually enters college but drops out and disappears. His mother, Sally, keeps in touch for a while, but gradually loses contact. Years later, Kent’s sister spots him on a TV news segment, and Sally finally sees him again. Her son has become an almost unrecognizable figure—like a hermit or a homeless wanderer. The story explores the painful distance that can grow between parents and children.

Kent says, “Don’t you get tired, Sally? Don’t you get tired being clever? …”

Face

A boy with a large birthmark on one side of his face befriends a girl. One day, while they are playing, the girl paints one side of her own face red, proudly telling him she now looks just like him. The boy is hurt and bursts into tears, and their mothers quarrel. The girl and her mother soon move away. Years later, when the boy is in college, his mother tells him the truth about the girl…

 

Child’s Play

Marlene and Charlene were inseparable in elementary school, almost like twins. As adults, they lose touch. Marlene becomes a professor, and when she publishes a book, she receives a letter from Charlene—but she doesn’t reply. Why does she avoid her childhood friend? A terrible, innocent‑seeming incident from their early years has cast a long shadow over both of their lives.

 

Too Much Happiness

The title story is a biographical fiction about Sophia Kovalevsky, the nineteenth‑century Russian mathematical genius. It is the longest piece in the collection.

 

 

 


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