Runaway [NOOK Book]

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Overview

“Runaway” is the first story in this stunning collection, sure to be a runaway success. All of the eight stories here are new, published in book form for the first time. Two of the eight have never appeared anywhere, so this will be a special feast for the millions of Munro fans around the world.

Miraculously, these stories seem to have been written by a young writer at the peak of her powers. Alice Munro’s central characters range from 14-year-old Lauren in “Trespass,” through the young couple in “Runaway,” whose helpful older neighbour intervenes to help the wife escape, all the way to a 70-year-old woman meeting a friend of her youth on a Vancouver ...
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More About This Book

Overview

“Runaway” is the first story in this stunning collection, sure to be a runaway success. All of the eight stories here are new, published in book form for the first time. Two of the eight have never appeared anywhere, so this will be a special feast for the millions of Munro fans around the world.

Miraculously, these stories seem to have been written by a young writer at the peak of her powers. Alice Munro’s central characters range from 14-year-old Lauren in “Trespass,” through the young couple in “Runaway,” whose helpful older neighbour intervenes to help the wife escape, all the way to a 70-year-old woman meeting a friend of her youth on a Vancouver street and sitting with him to recall their tangled lives fifty years earlier, through a web of cheerful lies.

Three of the stories, “Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence,” are linked, showing us how the young teacher Juliet meets her fisherman lover on a train (and, by terrible chance, visits his B.C. home on the day after his wife’s funeral); how, years later, she brings baby Penelope back east to show her parents and learns sad secrets about their marriage; and how, twenty years on, she visits the estranged Penelope in her cult-like B.C. community. The result is more powerful than most novels, a quality in Alice Munro’s stories that has been noted by many reviewers.

The final story, “Powers,” spans 50 years and runs from Goderich to Vancouver and involves a cast of four characters, each of whom steps forward to dominate the scene, not least Tessa, the plain girl whose psychic powers take her on the vaudeville circuit. But it is Alice Munro’s own powers that dominate this collection and that will amaze reviewers and readers. How can she keep getting better? How can any one person know so much about the heads and hearts of so many different people? And how can she weave them together in stories that delight academics and ordinary readers alike, making each new Alice Munro book a runaway bestseller?


From the Hardcover edition.

Never having been in serious trouble before, a seventeen-year-old boy thinks running away from home is the only solution when everything goes wrong in one evening.

Editorial Reviews

Carolyn See
Here are eight wonderful stories -- no, seven great stories and one good one. All seem at first to be about women, but they're about being human -- how that condition cradles us, limits us. Most of them begin in the relatively obscure past and proceed slowly and carefully into what we might call the present. Because of this stately movement through time, many of them are about the inevitable loss of everything we think we have when we are young. Because even as we live this exact moment, it's gone; we can't get it back.
— The Washington Post
Maria Fish
Runaway, which just won the Giller Prize, Canada's biggest literary award for fiction, may very well be the synthesizing work of one of literature's keenest investigators into the human soul. It will, in any case, reach far beyond its time.
— USA Today
More Reviews (3) Fewer Reviews
Publishers Weekly
Nothing is new in Munro's latest collection, which is to say that the author continues to perfect her virtuosic formula in these eight short stories, several of which previously appeared in the New Yorker. While her style typifies the traditionally realistic, often domestic genre of that magazine, Munro's stories are also global, bighearted and warm. In the title story, a housekeeper tries to leave her emotionally abusive husband, entangling her employer in the process. Three interconnected stories-"Chance," "Soon" and "Silence"-follow a schoolteacher as she falls for an older man, returns as a young mother to visit her ailing parents on their farm and much later tries to "rescue" her daughter from a religious cult. In "Tricks," a lonely nurse on a day trip encounters a man from Montenegro and vows to return to his clock shop one year later to resume their affair. In deliberate prose, Munro captures their fleeting moment of passion on a train platform: "This talk felt more and more like an agreed-upon subterfuge, like a conventional screen for what was becoming more inevitable all the time, more necessary, between them." Munro's characters are hopeful and proud as they face both the betrayals and gestures of kindness that animate their relationships. One never knows quite where a Munro story will end, only that it will leave an incandescent trail of psychological insight. Agent, William Morris. 100,000 first printing. (Nov. 14) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Munro's new story collection will delight fans and convert those who have never before read her work. Her spare style belies the psychological depth of the stories, which feature characters running away from someone or something (often representative of the past) or telling a lie by commission or omission (another form of running away). After opening with a vignette, Munro reveals what has led to or what flows from that moment. The protagonists look for, find, and lose love. Three stories trace Juliet's life from meeting her husband to separating from her adult daughter. "Trepasses" has a creepy beginning (Is Delphine really a family member?), which contributes to the impact of the ending. "Powers," a novella in four sections, begins with Nancy's diary, which is as funny as the story "How I Met My Husband." But the tone changes: at the end, an aged Nancy realizes that she cannot, even by psychic power, run away from or remake the past. Recommended for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 7/04.] Elaine Bender, El Camino Coll., Torrance, CA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Retrospect and resolution, neither fully comprehended nor ultimately satisfying: such are the territories the masterful Munro explores in her tenth collection. Each of its eight long tales in the Canadian author's latest gathering (after Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, 2001, etc.) bears a one-word title, and all together embrace a multiplicity of reactions to the facts of aging, changing, remembering, regretting, and confronting one's mortality. Three pieces focus on Juliet Henderson, a student and sometime teacher of classical culture, who waits years (in "Chance") before rediscovering romantic happiness with the middle-aged man with whom she had shared an unusual experience during a long train journey. In "Soon," Juliet and her baby daughter Penelope visit Juliet's aging parents, and she learns how her unconventional life has impacted on theirs. Then, in "Silence," a much older Juliet comes sorrowfully to terms with the emptiness in her that had forever alienated Penelope, "now living the life of a prosperous, practical matron" in a world far from her mother's. Generational and familial incompatibility also figure crucially in "Passion," the story (somewhat initially reminiscent of Forster's Howards End) of a rural girl's transformative relationship with her boyfriend's cultured, "perfect" family-and her realization that their imperfections adumbrate her own compromised future. Further complexities-and borderline believable coincidences and recognitions-make mixed successes of "Trespasses," in which a young girl's unease about her impulsive parents is shown to stem from a secret long kept from her, and "Tricks," an excruciatingly sad account of a lonely girl'shappenstance relationship with the immigrant clockmaker she meets while attending a Shakespeare festival, the promise she tries and helplessly fails to keep, and the damaging misunderstanding that, she ruefully reasons, "Shakespeare should have prepared her." Then there are the masterpieces: the title story's wrenching portrayal of an emotionally abused young wife's inability to leave her laconic husband; and the brilliant novella "Powers," which spans years and lives, a truncated female friendship that might have offered sustenance and salvation, and contains acute, revelatory discriminations between how women and men experience and perceive "reality."In a word: magnificent. First printing of 100,000. Agent: Virginia Barber/William Morris Agency

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780307427540
  • Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 12/18/2007
  • Sold by: Random House
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 352
  • Sales rank: 109,474
  • Series: Vintage Contemporaries Series
  • File size: 396 KB

Meet the Author

Alice Munro
Alice Munro
Born in Wingham, Ontario in 1931, Alice Munro has been hailed as a writer in the tradition of Chekhov. She has won many awards and prizes all over the English-speaking world. She and her husband divide their time between Clinton, Ontario, and Comox, British Columbia.

Biography

Even though Alice Munro is known for her love stories, don't mistake her for just another romance writer. Munro never romanticizes love, but rather presents it in all of its frustrating complexity. She does not feel impelled to tack happy endings onto her tales of heartbreak and healing. As a result, Munro's wholly credible love stories have marked her as a true original who spins stories that are as honest as they are dramatic.

Alice Munro got her start in writing as a teenager in Ontario, and published her first story while attending Western Ontario University in 1950. Her first book, a collection of short stories titled Dance of the Happy Shades, would not be published until 1968, but when it arrived, Munro rapidly established herself as a unique voice in contemporary literature. Over the course of fifteen short stories, Munro displayed a firmly focused vision, detailing the loves and life-altering moments of the inhabitants of rural Ontario. Munro takes a gradual, methodical approach to unraveling her stories, often developing a character's perspective through several paragraphs, only to demolish it with a single, biting sentence. Yet she also explores those heartbreaking delusions of her characters with humanity, undercutting the bitterness with genuine compassion.

Munro was instantly recognized for her debut collection of stories, winning the prestigious Governor General's Award in Canada. Monroe would then spend the majority of her career writing short stories rather than novels. "I want to tell a story, in the old-fashioned way -- what happens to somebody -- but I want that 'what happens' to be delivered with quite a bit of interruption, turnarounds, and strangeness," she explained to Random House.com. "I want the reader to feel something is astonishing -- not the 'what happens' but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me." Munro would only write one novel, Lives of Girls and Women, a coming-of-age tale about a young girl named Del Jordan, which is actually structured more like a collection of short stories than a typical novel. Throughout the rest of her work, she would continue to explore themes of love and the way memories shape one's life in short story collections such as Friend of My Youth, Open Secrets, and the award-winning The Love of a Good Woman, and her most recent, Runaway.

Because her stories are so unencumbered by clichés and speak with such clarity and truthfulness, it is often assumed that Munro's work is largely autobiographical. The fact that she chooses to set so many of her tales in her hometown only fuel these assumptions further. However, Munro says that very little of her material is based on her own life, and takes a more creative approach to inventing her finely developed characters. "Suppose you have -- in memory -- a young woman stepping off a train in an outfit so elegant her family is compelled to take her down a peg (as happened to me once)," she explains, "and it somehow becomes a wife who's been recovering from a mental breakdown, met by her husband and his mother and the mother's nurse whom the husband doesn't yet know he's in love with. How did that happen? I don't know."

As Munro grows older, her themes are turning more and more toward illness and death, yet she continues to display a startling vitality and youthfulness in her writing. A writer with a long and celebrated career, Alice Munro's work is just as compelling, honest, and insightful as ever.

Good To Know

Munro dropped out of college in 1951 to marry fellow student James Munro. The couple opened a bookstore in Victoria, had three children, and divorced in 1972. Munro continues to live in Canada with her second husband, geographer Gerald Fremlin.

Munro wrote on a typewriter for a good part of her career, calling herself a "late convert to every technological offering" in a publisher's interview. "I still don't own a microwave oven," she says.

    1. Hometown:
      Clinton, Ontario, and Comox, British Columbia
    1. Date of Birth:
      July 10, 1931
    2. Place of Birth:
      Wingham, Ontario, Canada
    1. Education:
      University of Western Ontario (no degree)

Read an Excerpt

From the story "Tricks"

For five years Robin had been doing this. One play every summer. It had started when she was living in Stratford, training to be a nurse. She went with a fellow student who had a couple of free tickets from her aunt, who worked on costumes. The girl who had the tickets was bored sick–it was King Lear–so Robin had kept quiet about how she felt. She could not have expressed it anyway–she would rather have gone away from the theater alone, and not had to talk to anybody for at least twenty-four hours. Her mind was made up then to come back. And to come by herself.

It wouldn’t be difficult. The town where she had grown up, and where, later, she had to find her work because of Joanne, was only thirty miles away. People there knew that the Shakespeare plays were being put on in Stratford, but Robin had never heard of anybody going to see one. People like Willard were afraid of being looked down on by the people in the audience, as well as having the problem of not following the language. And people like Joanne were sure that nobody, ever, could really like Shakespeare, and so if anybody from here went, it was because they wanted to mix with the higher-ups, who were not enjoying it themselves but only letting on they were. Those few people in town who made a habit of seeing stage productions preferred to go to Toronto, to the Royal Alex, when a Broadway musical was on tour.

Robin liked to have a good seat, so she could only afford a Saturday matinee. She picked a play that was being done on one of her weekends off from the hospital. She never read it beforehand, and she didn’t care whether it was a tragedy or a comedy. She had yet to see a single person there that she knew, in the theater or out on the streets, and that suited her very well. One of the nurses she worked with had said to her, “I’d never have the nerve to do that all on my own,” and that had made Robin realize how different she herself must be from most people. She never felt more at ease than at these times, surrounded by strangers. After the play she would walk downtown, along the river, and find some inexpensive place to eat–usually a sandwich, as she sat on a stool at the counter. And at twenty to eight she would catch the train home. That was all. Yet those few hours filled her with an assurance that the life she was going back to, which seemed so makeshift and unsatisfactory, was only temporary and could easily be put up with. And there was a radiance behind it, behind that life, behind everything, expressed by the sunlight seen through the train windows. The sunlight and long shadows on the summer fields, like the remains of the play in her head.

Last year, she saw Antony and Cleopatra. When it was over she walked along the river, and noticed that there was a black swan–the first she had ever seen–a subtle intruder gliding and feeding at a short distance from the white ones. Perhaps it was the glisten of the white swans’ wings that made her think of eating at a real restaurant this time, not at a counter. White tablecloth, a few fresh flowers, a glass of wine, and something unusual to eat, like mussels, or Cornish hen. She made a move to check in her purse, to see how much money she had.

And her purse was not there. The seldom-used little paisley- cloth bag on its silver chain was not slung over her shoulder as usual, it was gone. She had walked alone nearly all the way downtown from the theater without noticing that it was gone. And of course her dress had no pockets. She had no return ticket, no lipstick, no comb, and no money. Not a dime.

She remembered that throughout the play she had held the purse on her lap, under her program. She did not have the program now, either. Perhaps both had slipped to the floor? But no–she remembered having the bag in the toilet cubicle of the Ladies Room. She had hung it by the chain on the hook that was on the back of the door. But she had not left it there. No. She had looked at herself in the mirror over the washbasin, she had got the comb out to fiddle with her hair. Her hair was dark, and fine, and though she visualized it puffed up like Jackie Kennedy’s, and did it up in rollers at night, it had a tendency to go flat. Otherwise she had been pleased with what she saw. She had greenish-gray eyes and black eyebrows and a skin that tanned whether she tried or not, and all this was set off well by her tight-waisted, full-skirted dress of avocado-green polished cotton, with the rows of little tucks around the hips.

That was where she had left it. On the counter by the washbasin. Admiring herself, turning and looking over her shoulder to catch sight of the V of the dress at the back–she believed she had a pretty back–and checking that there was no bra strap showing anywhere.

And on a tide of vanity, of silly gratification, she had sallied out of the Ladies Room, leaving the purse behind.

She climbed the bank to the street and started back to the theater by the straightest route. She walked as fast as she could. There was no shade along the street, and there was busy traffic, in the heat of the late afternoon. She was almost running. That caused the sweat to leak out from under the shields in her dress. She trekked across the baking parking lot–now empty–and up the hill. No more shade up there, and nobody in sight around the theater building.

But it was not locked. In the empty lobby she stood a moment to get her sight back after the outdoor glare. She could feel her heart thumping, and the drops of moisture popping out on her upper lip. The ticket booths were closed, and so was the refreshment counter. The inner theater doors were locked. She took the stairway down to the washroom, her shoes clattering on the marble steps.

Let it be open, let it be open, let it be there.

No. There was nothing on the smooth veined counter, nothing in the wastebaskets, nothing on any hook on the back of any door.

A man was mopping the floor of the lobby when she came upstairs. He told her that it might have been turned in to the Lost and Found, but the Lost and Found was locked. With some reluctance he left his mopping and led her down another stairs to a cubbyhole containing several umbrellas, parcels, and even jackets and hats and a disgusting-looking brownish fox scarf. But no paisley-cloth shoulder purse.

“No luck,” he said.

“Could it be under my seat?” she begged, though she was sure it could not be.

“Already been swept in there.”

There was nothing for her to do then but climb the stairs, walk through the lobby, and go out onto the street.

She walked in the other direction from the parking lot, seeking shade. She could imagine Joanne saying that the cleaning man had already stashed her purse away to take home to his wife or his daughter, that is what they were like in a place like this. She looked for a bench or a low wall to sit down on while she figured things out. She didn’t see such a thing anywhere.

A large dog came up behind her and knocked against her as it passed. It was a dark-brown dog, with long legs and an arrogant, stubborn expression.

“Juno. Juno,” a man called. “Watch where you’re going.

“She is just young and rude,” he said to Robin. “She thinks she owns the sidewalk. She’s not vicious. Were you afraid?”

Robin said, “No.” The loss of her purse had preoccupied her and she had not thought of an attack from a dog being piled on top of that.

“When people see a Doberman they are often frightened. Dobermans have a reputation to be fierce, and she is trained to be fierce when she’s a watchdog, but not when she’s walking.”

Robin hardly knew one breed of dog from another. Because of Joanne’s asthma, they never had dogs or cats around the house.

“It’s all right,” she said.

Instead of going ahead to where the dog Juno was waiting, her owner called her back. He fixed the leash he was carrying onto her collar.

“I let her loose down on the grass. Down below the theater. She likes that. But she ought to be on the leash up here. I was lazy. Are you ill?”

Robin did not even feel surprised at this change in the conversation’s direction. She said, “I lost my purse. It was my own fault. I left it by the washbasin in the Ladies Room at the theater and I went back to look but it was gone. I just walked away and left it there after the play.”

“What play was it today?”

“Antony and Cleopatra,” she said. “My money was in it and my train ticket home.”

“You came on the train? To see Antony and Cleopatra?”

“Yes.”

She remembered the advice their mother had given to her and to Joanne about travelling on the train, or travelling anywhere. Always have a couple of bills folded and pinned to your underwear. Also, don’t get into a conversation with a strange man.


From the Hardcover edition.

Table of Contents

Runaway 3
Chance 48
Soon 87
Silence 126
Passion 159
Trespasses 197
Tricks 236
Powers 270

Reading Group Guide

1. “Runaway”
Why is Sylvia so fond of Carla? Is Sylvia right, given the circumstances, to suggest that Carla leave her husband and give her the means to do so?

2. When Carla tells her parents she wants a “more authentic” life, what does she mean by this [p. 33]? How much does Carla know about authenticity or about life?

3. What is Clark’s appeal for Carla? What darker suggestions does the story make about Clark’s character? It seems that Clark has wanted to get rid of Carla’s beloved pet goat: why? What resonance does Carla’s vision of the goat’s bones lying in a nearby field have for the reader’s understanding of her future?

4. “Chance”
Why does Juliet decide to pursue Eric, a man she has met briefly only once? Is this a haphazard adventure, or does she go to Whale Bay with a determination about what she wants? She has told Eric about her studies in Greek and Latin, “I love all that stuff. I really do” [p. 71]. Later, she thinks of her love of the classical languages as her “treasure” [p. 83]. Why does she choose a man whose reading includes only National Geographic and Popular Mechanics [p. 82]?

5. Consider the end of the story: “She can tell by his voice that he is claiming her. She stands up, quite numb, and sees that he is older, heavier, more impetuous than she has remembered. He advances on her and she feels herself ransacked from top to bottom, flooded with relief, assaulted by happiness. How astonishing this is. How close to dismay” [p. 85]. What does this passage express about Juliet’s situation and her feelings?

6. “Soon”
When Juliet finds the print of Chagall’s I and the Village and buys it for her parents, she tells Christa, “It makes me think of their life. . . . I don’t know why, but it does” [p. 88]. What is the significance of this painting as a gift and that Juliet later finds it hidden away in their attic? What does Juliet come to understand about her parents’ marriage?

7. Sara tells Juliet, “When it gets really bad for me–when it gets so bad I–you know what I think then? I think, all right, I think–Soon. Soon I’ll see Juliet” [p. 124]. Why does Juliet refuse to acknowledge this statement from her dying mother? What makes the final paragraph of the story so effective in conveying the moment’s cold emotion?

8. “Silence”
Like Carla in “Runaway,” Juliet seems to take pride in her choice of an unconventional life. Does Penelope punish her mother for denying her the comfortable, conventional life she experiences with her friend Heather’s family [p. 144]? Is Juliet right or wrong to share with Penelope, just after Eric’s death, tales of their arguments and his infidelity and to describe the burning of his body on the beach [p. 149]? Is it possible that Juliet says something during this time that is, for Penelope, unforgivable? To what extent does the story repeat the pattern of “Soon” and Juliet’s rejection of her own mother?

9. What does Juliet not see about herself that is clear to the reader? What aspects of her character are problematic? Is she admirable? Is she a narcissist? Is she “lacking in motherly inhibitions and propriety and self-control” [p. 156]? How does she handle the suffering inflicted upon her by Penelope and the diminishment of her life as she ages?

10. “Passion”
When Mrs. Travers is talking about Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina with Grace, she says her sympathies shifted from Kitty, to Anna, to Dolly, “I suppose that’s just how your sympathies change as you get older. Passion gets pushed behind the washtubs” [p. 172]. Does passion have several meanings in this story? What does passion mean for each character?

11. “The ease with which [Grace] offered herself” to Maury is “a deliberate offering which he could not understand and which did not fit in at all with his notions of her” [p. 173]. Later, Grace realizes it would have been “a treachery to herself” to think of marrying Maury [p. 190]. What changes for Grace when she spends time with Neil? What causes this profound shift in perspective? What do she and Neil have in common?

12. The story opens with Grace’s return forty years later to find the Traverses’ house on the lake, which is the site of “old confusions or obligations” [p. 161]. Why does Munro choose not to tell us what Grace’s life is like now and how the choices she made that day have affected her?

13. “Trespasses”
Harry tells Lauren about Eileen’s first child and the circumstances of that child’s death when she unknowingly picks up the box containing the first child’s ashes [pp. 203—04]. What do we learn about his character from the way he narrates the story and his attitude toward Lauren as he tells her? What does he imply about Eileen? How does Lauren’s response reflect her feelings toward her parents and to the life they’ve chosen?

14. Lauren, as Delphine points out, is “a kid that is not short of information” [p. 220]. We don’t learn until page 226, however, that Lauren is only ten. Why does Munro withhold this information until fairly late in the story?

15. Why do Harry and Eileen decide to make a ceremony of scattering the first child’s ashes? What is the impact of Harry’s words, “This is Lauren . . . and we say good-bye to her and commit her to the snow” [pp. 233—34]? What is the effect of the story’s final paragraph about Lauren’s reaction to the burrs clinging to her pajamas?

16. “Tricks”
This story is based on the Shakespearean plots that involve twins, mistaken identities, and precise symmetry. Such tricks of plot, Robin thinks, are supposed to be a means to an end, “The pranks are forgiven, true love or something like it is rekindled, and those who were fooled have the good grace not to complain” [p. 268]. Why is the key to the mystery revealed to Robin so late in the game? Why did the lovers base their happiness on such a risky proposal? After finding out what had come between herself and Danilo, Robin reflects, “That was another world they had been in, surely” [p. 269]. What was this other world?

17. The title of this story might also be “Chance.” What does Munro suggest about the power of chance in shaping a life?

18. “Powers”
The story opens with Nancy’s diary and her first person voice. What do we learn about Nancy’s character in this intimate narrative form? According to Ollie, Nancy is “not outstanding in any way, except perhaps in being spoiled, saucy, and egotistical”; as a girl she was “truly, naturally reckless and full of some pure conviction that she led a charmed life” [pp. 285, 287]. Is this an accurate description of Nancy?

19. Like several other stories in this collection, “Powers” takes place in at least two time periods. It begins in 1927 and ends some time in the early seventies. What is the effect of this dual immersion in the early and late stages of the characters’ lives? How accurately does this story project the sense of reality in its main character’s voice and her immersion in a particular time and place?

20. What does Nancy want or expect from marriage? Why does she marry Wilf? Does it seem that she would prefer to marry Ollie? Why or why not? Does Nancy warn Tessa against Ollie out of jealousy, or out of a realistic concern that he is not to be trusted?

21. Does the story’s ending describe a dream [pp. 330—35]? A vision? Why does it provide Nancy with a “sense of being reprieved” [p. 335]? What does it tell us about Nancy’s conscience and about her lifelong involvement with Tessa and Ollie?

22. For discussion of Runaway
Most of these stories involve young women who act upon a strong desire for sexual or romantic fulfillment or for escape from a stifling life. Is desire liberating or confining? Do these characters really know what they want or need? Does Munro suggest that desire is provisional and subject to change? Do the stories imply that life is inherently unstable and unknowable?

23. Writer Alan Hollinghurst has observed, “Munro’s stories have always felt exceptionally capacious; they have the scope of novels, though without any awkward sense of speeding up or boiling down. . . . It’s almost impossible to describe their unforced exactness, their unrushed economy” [The Guardian, February 5, 2005]. Which techniques does Munro employ to accomplish this illusion of space and time in only forty or fifty pages?

24. In “Soon,” Juliet comes across a chatty letter she had written to Eric the summer she visited her parents [p. 124]. In it she finds “the preserved and disconcerting voice of some past fabricated self” [p. 125]. How does this idea of false self-representation work in various stories? Do characters tend to misrepresent themselves mainly in letters, or in person as well? Do they believe in these “fabricated selves” that they create for themselves and others?

25. Most of the stories in Runaway involve an older woman who is looking back at a determining moment in her youth. How do these characters view their younger selves? What are the qualities that accompany their reminiscences about the past–sentimentality, irony, bitterness, regret, a desire to change the story?

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 27 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted September 6, 2006

    Very Pleased

    This is the first book of Munro's that I have read and I bought it because of all the good reviews. I was very pleased with it and hope to read more of Munro's work. The stories here truly put you in someone else's shoes and touch your heart. Highly recommended!

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted March 4, 2012

    So perfect and simple!

    These stories are so unassuming, so. . ., well, I don't want to say ordinary, so let's say quotidian. You don't realize how they are affecting you, until you finish them, and everything that has filled you up leaves you. Through the simplest words and action, she creates something so vivid and relatable. I can see why she's so famous.

    I loved the stories about Juliet. (CHANCE, SOON, SILENCE). The first story (RUNAWAY) was great as well. I was totally thrown on any motivations of the characters. She gave you just enough to try and figure everything out. Such subtlety is appreciated. Also, PASSION, was wonderful. The plot was a shocker, but the motivations, one's ability to act impulsively, in a dream-like state almost, was captured here. We have all certainly had inexplicable moments such as these. I think my favorite, plotwise, was "Tricks", seeing as I'm simultaneously reading Stephen King's THE DARK HALF.

    All in all---really wonderful stuff. I read this collection because I was so moved by THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN. I'm adding something else to my list to read right now.

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  • Posted September 21, 2010

    Gems worth digging for

    This collection of short stories is inconsistent, but there are a few gems to be discovered. The title story was my favorite, an original, nuanced tale populated with complex characters that kicked off a lively discussion in my book club. I also liked Tricks, a story about a chance meeting between a man and a woman, and what happens when they agree to meet again one year later.

    Unfortunately, some of the other stories weren't quite as well crafted. At least three were well-paced until the very end, when they abruptly resolved.

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  • Posted May 28, 2010

    Uggg.....

    I do not recommend this book. It is a series of short stories about love and betrayal. It is not very good, at the end of each short story, I was left saying, "What?!" The stories were hard to follow and not very entertaining. I stuck with the book thinking that one story would be better than the rest or that one story would really capture my attention but not so. This book is not recommended by me, I didn't like it, it was hard to read and there are better books out there.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 3, 2005

    Look no more

    Looking for a truly great collection of stories, say along the lines of Jackson McCrae's 'Children's Corner' or possibly those of Flannery O'Connor? Then look no more----you've just found it. Alice Munro is one great writer and these little gems are worth every cent you'll pay for them. A Canadian treasure!!!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 6, 2005

    A masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true.

    This book is a pleasure to read. By the end of this gripping story, the plots and subplots are interwoven to make one plot that could only be thought up by a genius. I won't say any more so I don't spoil the book. I highly recommend it.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 4, 2005

    Inspirational

    This is a beautifully written work and a pleasure to read. I had not read Munro before until I laid my hands on this book. That is why I consider this book as a revelation .The stories are heart-touching, full of lessons and inspirational. The characters are rich, vividly drawn and genuine. I must add that the stories are very insightful, and with that comes the boundlessness and timelessness of it all, as they show how small events can change lives, and how different those events appear to us after. Munro's unique portrayal of everyday aspects of life is rare around and the richness of it will make you want to read all of her other books. Most of the stories tell us how the characters that are easy to relate to are changed by events for forever The fact that this book is a series of well written stories that delve into the thoughts and dreams of the characters, thoughts and dreams that we all share, makes RUNAWAY and the other stories a recommended read. It is a superbly written work that takes its time to work its charm on you.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 22, 2004

    Beautifully Written

    This is a charming book that is beautifully written. It is a pleasure to read. It is the type of book that any woman can enjoy, and I recommend it for yourself or as a gift.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 14, 2004

    I'm telling everyone about this book

    I feel like I am the first one to discover a treasure. My copy arrived on a Friday and by Saturday afternoon I had read the entire book. It was wonderful! The stories are heart touching and inspirational, and the characters genuine. The minute I finished reading I picked up the phone and called my dearest friends, none of whom had heard of this great book. We share our favorites and I am sure they are going to love this one. One of them had recommended a great book to me last month: A YEAR SINCE YESTERDAY by George Edward Zintel. That book was as good as this one so I feel we are even now. ha ha. If you love great stories and great writing get these two wonderful books. A YEAR SINCE YESTERDAY lists as paperback but comes as a large softcover. RUNAWAY comes hardcover. And remember, Christmas is just around the corner. Books make great presents.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 3, 2004

    Stellar collection of insight into the human heart

    When recommend a book to someone, I try to keep in mind what they¿re interested in. The joy of Munro¿s books is that you don¿t have to do this¿they¿re really about any and everything and the writing is so accessible and intelligent that anyone can pick these up and like them. If you enjoyed Jackson McCrae¿s THE CHILDREN¿S CORNER or David Egger¿s HOW WE ARE HUNGRY, then you¿ll love Munro¿s latest collection. Of all the stories in this staggering little bunch, ¿Powers¿ was, for me, the most riveting. Dealing with a young woman who has the ability to read the future, her escapades start the ball rolling (not always in a good direction) for family and friends. Munro is a Canadian, and one might suspect she would be somewhat limited in her material. Not so. These stories are filled with insight that cuts across geography and time. If you enjoy good writing that takes its time to work its charm on you, then I strongly suggest you try RUNAWAY. If you haven¿t read the Eggers or the McCrae yet, those are musts. With the short story form coming back into vogue, these are all winners.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 4, 2011

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 12, 2010

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    Posted January 12, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 6, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 13, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 25, 2009

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    Posted November 7, 2010

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    Posted June 8, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 15, 2011

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 5, 2010

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 27 Customer Reviews
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