What are Alice Munro's core ideas about memory and fiction?
Memory isn't a straight line; it's a collection of images, feelings, fragments that we arrange and rearrange to make sense of ourselves. My stories often try to reflect this, jumping back and forth, showing how the past shapes the present in ways we might not immediately recognize. Fiction, for me, is a way to explore these arrangements, to hold up a mirror to how we construct our own narratives. It's in the specific detail, the unexpected connection, that these truths about memory and selfhood can emerge. It's about the things within things, always.
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