Took You So Long

Book excerpt: Often out of sight and certainly out of mind, the characters in Took You So Long inhabit the landscape of the Saugeen watershed south of Owen Sound, in the lee of Lake Huron A morel-seeking gastronome falls into a gopher hole and reflects on the multiple facets of restraint. A donation-bin picker is on the hunt for her next great find—and husband number four—despite cohabitating with three of her exes. A lonely widower discovers that his robotic full-service companion makes him lonelier than ever. A son’s hunting trip with his father forces him to confront the terrible certainty of physical decline. Compassionate, honest and propelled by forceful emotion, Matthews’s stories ask us to question who we are, where we belong, and how we move on in the face of adversity.