Spanning almost thirty years and settings that range from big cities to small towns and farmsteads of rural Canada, this magnificent collection brings together twenty-eight stories by a writer of unparalleled wit, generosity, and emotional power. In her Selected Stories, Alice Munro makes lives that seem small unfold until they are revealed to be as spacious as prairies and locates the moments of love and betrayal, desire and forgiveness, that change those lives forever. To read these stories–about a traveling salesman and his children on an impromptu journey; an abandoned woman choosing between seduction and solitude–is to succumb to the spell of a writer who enchants her readers utterly even as she restores them to their truest selves.
Walker brothers cowboy
Dance of the happy shades
Postcard
Images
Something I’ve been meaning to tell you
The Ottawa Valley
Material
Royal beatings
Wild swans
The beggar maid
Simon’s luck
Chaddeleys and Flemings
Dulse
The turkey season
Labor Day dinner
The moons of Jupiter
The progress of love
Lichen
Miles City, Montana
White dump
Fits
Friend of my youth
Meneseteung
Differently
Carried away
The Albanian virgin
A wilderness station
Vandals
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Alice Munro
Alice Munro’s work has been hailed for revolutionizing the short story genre, particularly noted for its fluidity in moving forward and backward in time and the integration of interconnected short fiction cycles. Her narrative technique showcases “inarguable virtuosity,” embedding more than announcing, revealing more than parading. Recognized as a pioneer in short story writing, the Swedish Academy praised her as a “master of the contemporary short story” capable of encapsulating the epic complexity of novels in just a few pages. Her stories have attracted new generations of readers, earning her acclaim as a “master of the short story” in her New York Times obituary. Her work often draws comparisons to the most critically acclaimed short story writers, like Anton Chekhov and John Cheever.
Munro’s career and works are often ranked alongside these renowned writers. As Garan Holcombe notes, her stories, like Chekhov’s, are built on epiphanic moments, sudden enlightenments, and concise, subtle, revelatory details. Her themes encompass love, work, and their inherent failings, sharing Chekhov’s obsession with time and the inevitable march forward. Munro’s stories are considered a “national treasure” of Canada, focusing largely on rural Canadian life from a woman’s perspective. Margaret Atwood called Munro a “pioneer for women, and for Canadians.” The Associated Press highlighted Munro’s ability to create stories set in Canada that resonate with readers globally.
Sherry Linkon, a professor at Georgetown University, remarked that Munro’s work “helped remodel and revitalize the short-story form.” The complex themes in her stories, such as womanhood, death, relationships, aging, and the counterculture of the 1960s, were groundbreaking. Upon winning the Man Booker International Prize, judges lauded her stories for bringing “as much depth, wisdom, and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels.”
However, Munro’s legacy faced reassessment following revelations of sexual abuse involving her daughter. Munro’s Books, a bookstore, issued a statement supporting the victim. Novelist Rebecca Makkai commented that the revelations tarnish not just the artist but the art itself, prompting a reevaluation of Munro’s standing as an author.