SOURCE: Crouse, David. “Resisting Reduction: Closure in Richard Ford's Rock Springs and Alice Munro's Friend of My Youth.” Canadian Literature 146 (autumn 1995): 51-64.

In the following essay, Crouse examines the role of epiphany in Richard Ford's Rock Springs and Alice Munro's Friend of My Youth.

The writer of the realistic short story has two primary aims: first, to create a vivid and lifelike world, something that approximates the reader's idea of the way the world really works, and secondly, to create characters who move and change. These principles are taught in almost every beginning fiction class. But every beginning writer eventually becomes aware that these two aims are often in conflict, and especially so in the context of the short story, which because of its condensed form naturally lends itself to a kind of neatness which might not ring true to both writer and reader. For instance, the traditional...