In 2006, Alice Munro said that she was not going to write any more. Many journalists seized on this terrible news and reported it as fact, and it flashed around the Canadian literary world like summer lightning

 Wiser heads, however, checked with me, her long-time editor, and found me dismissing the idea, with the words that “Alice is a born writer, and she’s not going to stop writing.”

   Fortunately for the world, I was right, and she has produced two collections of stories since then.

  Sadly, I’m not saying that this time.

   In fact, when she came to Toronto in June, to accept the Trillium Prize for Dear Life, I was with her in a private room at the Toronto Reference Library when the enterprising Mark Medley interviewed her and asked her about her future writing plans. When she told him that she had no such plans, and had stopped writing, (“I’m probably not going to write anymore”), I stayed silent.

  Recently Charles McGrath, of the New York Times, visited her in Clinton and returned with the same story. His fine July 1 article, “Alice Munro Puts Down Her Pen To Let The World In” reflects the fact that he is an old friend and editor of Alice’s work, and a great admirer. It’s a superb account of Alice’s life and work, and I recommend it highly.

  So what has changed? For a start, Alice is now 82. In April she lost her beloved husband, Gerry Fremlin, and life is harder now. On the subject of growing old, which Charles McGrath rightly notes is “a subject that preoccupies some of her best stories”, she says “I worry less than I did. There’s nothing you can do about it, and it’s better than being dead. I feel that I’ve done what I wanted to do, and that makes me fairly content.”

   “Fairly content”…now there’s an Alice Munro expression, (just like “better than being dead”). I suppose I can say that the millions of readers around the world who know her work can be “fairly content” that she wrote a lifetime’s worth of wonderful short stories that can be read and re-read for ever. My own recommendation, by the way, is The Progress Of Love, which I discuss on my Book Club website, complete with 20 Discussion Points.

   I accompanied Alice to two award sessions in Toronto in June, in both cases whisked by limo to the event, then escorted (with me hovering at Alice’s elbow, the escort escorted) to the reception and the dinner. At both the Libris Awards session, where I spoke to introduce Alice to the nation’s booksellers, who were giving her a Lifetime Achievement Award, and at the later Trillium Prize event, there was a strong sense that people in the audience knew that this was a special moment towards the end of a long , unmatched career. The affection and respect in the sustained, standing ovations were very obvious, almost tangible. And the people who took the opportunity to come to our table to greet Alice (“Yes, I once met Alice Munro!”), sometimes were literally kneeling to greet her , and were always visibly affected when they staggered away, dazed by the experience of meeting her, although she was always friendly and unaffected (“Who do you think you are?”)
It was wonderful to be so close to such powerful experiences, although my role was to watch for signs of strain, then to swoop Alice back to her limo, and back to the family waiting for her at the hotel.