Very rarely are the plot mechanics the take-away message of a story. The plot is rather secondary, existing primarily as a method of illustrating the passage of time, either in a small, single event such as the boredom of a commonplace formality shattered by a surprising twist of unique characters entering the scene ( In Dance of the Happy Shades a children’s piano recital is shaken up when another school arrive lates, increasing the awkwardness of the event sevenfold) or the entire lifespan of a woman.

Her characters are play out their dramas on a stage of society, chafing of the relationships with lovers and family or social constructs, instead of on the playing field of plot. Much like the Southern Gothic to which Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner belong (I was recommended Munro due to my obsession with those two authors which characterized my reading selection during my late teens and early twenties), Munro’s fiction builds on the social, political, moral and religious atmosphere of her region as the past is always shaping the present in the lives of her characters. In the vein of authors such as William Faulkner or Anton Chekhov, Munro unlocks the lives of women through her keen eye for acute observation and characterization.Īlong with authors such as Margaret Atwood, Munro has been classified as a member of the ‘Southern Ontario Gothic’ ¹. Selected Stories is an excellent best-of introduction to the author as it collects 28 stories from three decades of her prestigious career to reveal an incredible scope of emotion and sincerity. These ‘things within things’ - the greater truth in the smallest of details, are the hearts and souls of her fiction. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.’įrom short accounts of singular events to the sprawling history of a life or love affair, Alice Munro shows it is the little things that matter most. ‘ The complexity of things - the things within things - just seems to be endless.

Something I've been meaning to tell you. 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. 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. 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.

Alice munro's best selected stories