Dear Life: Stories (Vintage International)
Alice Munro
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 0307743721
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
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 Club
In 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.
without any of those cookies. You could quit eating cookies altogether. You’re on the way to getting as plump as a young pig.” Mary’s face was swollen as if she would start to cry but instead she said, “Look who’s talking. You got one eye crooked to the other.” “That’s enough.” “Well you have.” The doctor picked up her boots and set them down in front of her. “Put these on.” She did so, with her eyes full of tears and her nose running. She snuffled mightily. He brought her coat and did not
grandmother who used to read and was now dead. She spoke then of library property, and sometimes the book actually showed up in the returns bin. The only thing not agreeable about sitting in the library was the noise. It was made by Jimmy Cousins, who cut the grass around the library building, starting again practically as soon as he’d finished because he had nothing else to do. So she hired him to do the lawns at her house—something she’d been doing herself for the exercise, but her figure
had been stopped, could a kidnapper have got on the train and somehow made off with Katy? She stood in the aisle, trying to think what she had to do to stop the train. Then she thought, she made herself think, that nothing like that could have happened. Don’t be ridiculous. Katy must have wakened and found her not there and gone looking for her. All by herself, she had gone looking. Right around here, she must be right around here. The doors at either end of the coach were far too heavy for
woman in that room you couldn’t help noticing, one whose dress would certainly put my mother’s in the shade. She must have been quite a bit older than my mother—her hair was white, and worn in a smooth sophisticated arrangement of what were called marcelled waves, close to her scalp. She was a large person with noble shoulders and broad hips, and she was wearing a dress of golden-orange taffeta, cut with a rather low square neck and a skirt that just covered her knees. Her short sleeves held her
that I had heard about in town or that had happened at school. Our house was of a decent size. We didn’t know exactly when it had been built but it had to be less than a century old, because 1858 was the year the first settler had stopped at a place called Bodmin—which had now disappeared—built himself a raft, and come down the river to clear trees from the land that later became a whole village. That early village soon had a sawmill and a hotel and three churches and a school, the same school