Dear Life: Stories Author: Alice Munro | Language: English | ISBN:
B0084TWN9K | Format: PDF
Dear Life: Stories Description
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE© IN LITERATURE 2013
A New York Times Notable Book
A Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction
A Best Book of the Year: The Atlantic, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Vogue, AV ClubIn story after story in this brilliant new collection, Alice Munro pinpoints the moment a person is forever altered by a chance encounter, an action not taken, or a simple twist of fate. Her characters are flawed and fully human: a soldier returning from war and avoiding his fiancée, a wealthy woman deciding whether to confront a blackmailer, an adulterous mother and her neglected children, a guilt-ridden father, a young teacher jilted by her employer. Illumined by Munro’s unflinching insight, these lives draw us in with their quiet depth and surprise us with unexpected turns. And while most are set in her signature territory around Lake Huron, some strike even closer to home: an astonishing suite of four autobiographical tales offers an unprecedented glimpse into Munro’s own childhood. Exalted by her clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling,
Dear Life shows how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.
- File Size: 1372 KB
- Print Length: 338 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0307743721
- Publisher: Vintage (November 13, 2012)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0084TWN9K
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,903 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Women's Fiction - #4
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Short Stories - #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories
- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Women's Fiction - #4
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Short Stories - #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories
What can be said about Alice Munro's luminous writing that hasn't already been said? What unused plump adjectives might be bandied about to describe her way with words? What turn of phrase or simile might once again skirt the edge of capturing her unparalleled ability to so aptly describe those quiet moments in life that can change everything in a flash? Crossroads, they are called. A lightning bug trapped inside a jar, now free. Her latest collection, DEAR LIFE, is all of those flashy adjectives and overextended metaphors. It's everything you want it to be, and more.
Munro has written 12 other short story collections as well as a few volumes of selected previously published stories and one novel. You'd think with this many published stories in her back pocket that maybe she'd retrace her steps, write the same story but with different characters, rely on a well-tread formula or two for some of the "filler" in the book. But such is not the case. While many reoccurring themes are explored, DEAR LIFE is as fresh and illuminating as any of her previous collections, if not more so. As another reviewer so fittingly put it, "there are no clunkers here."
"To Reach Japan," the first entry in the collection, finds Greta and her young daughter Katy on a train to Toronto to housesit a friend's home for a month while Greta's husband --- and Katy's father --- begins a new job elsewhere. While on the journey, the normally quiet and contained Greta gets too deep in the drink with a younger fellow they meet on the train and, in a moment of lusty abandon, loses track of Katy. Of course, mother and daughter are reunited, but not without Greta feeling the full weight of what might have happened.
Fans of Alice Munro will be very happy with her new collection of short stories. Those that are new to her writing would be better served by starting out with one of her earlier books as these stories are not all that typical of her writing and there is an autobiographical section in the back of the book.
Ms. Munro has published twelve collections of short stories and one novel. She is a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Booker Award and the Lannan Literary Award. Her books have been translated into thirteen languages.
In the autobiographical section, there are tender remembrances of her past and her time with her familiy. 'Dear Life', the title story, is about her growing up. Her father started a business raising foxes and minks for their pelts. Eventually the business failed and her father went to work in a forgery. Her mother developed Parkinson's Disease when she was in her forties. The family did not realize that it was progressive and incurable. In 'The Eye', she writes about Sadie who helps out in their house. Alice and she develop a close bond. Sadie gets run over by a car on the way back from a dance when she is not yet twenty years old. This story explores the quality of their relationship.
One of the more powerful stories in the collection is 'Amundsen'. A teacher in a rural sanitarium for children with tuberculosis becomes engaged to a doctor who works there. Things don't progress as she hoped they would. 'Leaving Maverly' was my favorite story. Each night, a police officer drives a young woman of a very fundamentalist religious denomination home. One night she skips town. His own wife is very ill with serious heart disease and he ends up taking her to Toronto for care.
Dear Life: Stories Preview
Link
Please Wait...