I read Alice Munro’s books in benders. It usually takes me less than two days to finish one of her collections, and while reading it, I make and break promises to myself—to stop after this story, to take a shower, to run an errand just for the exercise or maybe see a friend (or else around eleven PM, I will find myself regretting how restless and dirty I am, still in last night’s pajamas, which are now exactly my body temperature.)