Why Elisabeth de Mariaffi can't get enough of Alice Munro's short stories
This interview originally aired on Oct. 12, 2019.
Elisabeth de Mariaffi is the critically acclaimed author of three books: the Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated short story collection How to Get Along with Women and the literary thrillers The Devil You Know and Hysteria.
The 1986 short story collection The Progress of Love by Alice Munro is a book that de Mariaffi can't get enough of.
"When I think of a book that I've gone back to, over and over again, it would have to be Alice Munro's The Progress of Love. There's good reasons to think about going back to Munro; she can do more in 30 pages what most novelists can't do in an entire book.
"In the last few years I've started to ask myself why I do what I do — as someone who writes suspense novels — and so I tend to go back to Munro. I think it has to do with secrets and secret keeping, themes that come up pretty consistently in many of her stories."
Elisabeth de Mariaffi's comments have been edited for length and clarity.
