Alice Munro’s Passive Voice

During the few days I spent alone after my mother’s death I was able to observe a slight alteration in my behaviour.

He knew it would make no sense to his wife, and having the pages out of his hands made him feel like he’d lost part of himself. Days went by without Julia mentioning the book, and she seemed to go to great effort not to meet his eyes. The fog that had arrived with William’s injury returned to his peripheral vision, like cloud cover circling a mount

A: Yes. I didn’t really understand that until Otto was born. She was unable to take care of him. She didn’t hold him, she didn’t feed him. She cried all the time, more than he did. For months. Q: That must have been difficult. A: Of course. Claudia got better, eventually. We never really talked about it. But, later, she would have these bouts of— I

“…the stammerings of an old man who does not seem to have achieved a full psychic victory over an awkward adolescence…”

Rachel misses the funeral. She does not send a wreath. She does not supply words of remembrance for the service. Communication has ceased between her and Lawrence, that is to say, between her and Emily, who has assumed control of the proceedings, and after a huge argument on the phone about duty and emotional incapacity, excludes her. She is now fu