She must have felt uneasy this time, because of the waning popularity of her hikes, which she blamed on television, working mothers, laxity in the home. Get a move on and you’ll warm up without it, she would have said. In the old days Miss Johnstone would probably have said no. On this particularly terrible day, though, Heather Bell asked if she could go back to fetch a sweater. Now in her early sixties, the group is not what it used to be. Mary has been leading groups of teen-age girls on this hike every June for decades.

Heather Bell, a young woman new to the small town, was out hiking with a group of girls, led by Mary Johnstone. This story begins just after an unfortunate event. By keeping the mystery open, the reader is invited to participate in the dark suspicions. Similarly, Munro is not interested in letting us know exactly “what happened” she interested in the ramifications of uncertainty as well as the dark suspicions that reveal much more about the person harboring the suspicions than they do about the suspicious event itself. In “Open Secrets,” Alice Munro uses a disappearance to explore the introspection - the desire, not just to solve the mystery, but also to find some personal meaning - that goes on in the hearts and minds of those who remain. I’ve written a bit about the “lost girl” plot before, particularly in my review of Peter Weir’s film Picnic at Hanging Rock ( here), a fantastic film that famously does not offer any resolution to the central mystery.

Open secrets munro