The Difficult was at first a footnote to an essay on Lisa Moore's novel, February. I was defending that novel against an absurd charge that it was anti-feminist. That quite accessible novel had been so superficially and insensitively read that I began to wonder how any such reader could begin to cope with more challenging books. From the essay on February, that was too great a detour, certainly for the book (Strangers & Others: Newfoundland Essays)...