Reviews
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: "Her 11th collection of short stories about people, often women living in rural Ontario, whose vivid, unremarkable lives are rendered with almost Tolstoyan resonance." "In a word, magnificent." Kirkus, starred review "Dazzling...What's astonishing about Munro's work is how simultaneously unsparing and forgiving it is, how willing she is to say things no one else will admit out loud. Munro hasn't mellowed with maturity. She only grows sharper with time." Francine Prose,More "Global, bighearted, and warm...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." Publisher's Weekly, starred review "Haunting...[Munro's] sheer perception and eloquence make her one of the foremost contemporary practitioners of the short story in English...Remarkable." Booklist, starred review "New Munro stories: who could ask for anything more?" Library Journal "A sensitive and deeply insightful writer, Munro renders hauntingly realistic characters with an unflinching eye." ElleMagazine Reader's Prize "Another carefully calibrated collection about [Munro's] favorite themes: unfaithful women, fraying marriages, long-standing deceptions....Simply breathtaking." Fort WorthStar Telegram "[Runawayis] quintessential Munro at top form...Throughout the work Munro captures the defining human struggle to make sense of a capricious or shapeless reality, to reach 'the discovery that leaves everything whole.'" Quill & Quire "The great Alice Munro proves again why short-story writers bow down to her." Vanity Fair "Alice Munro has a strong claim to being the best fiction writer now working in North America....Runawayis a marvel....Runawayis so good that I don't want to talk about it here. Quotation can't do the book justice, and neither can synopsis. The way to do it justice is to read it...Which leaves me with the simple instruction that I began with: Read Munro! Read Munro!" Jonathan Franzen, on the cover ofThe New York Times Book Review "As with so many of Munro's stories, you read to have your premises altered and deepened. Could anything be better?" Michael Frank,Los Angeles Times "In Alice Munro's hands, the smallest moments contain the central truths of a lifetime." Judith Timson,Maclean's "Munro is routinely called one of the finest living writers. You can turn to any of the eight stories inRunawayand see why...Let's be clear about one thing here: this is a rave." Richard Lacayo,People "[These] eight wonderful stories...seem at first to be about women, but they're about being humanhow that condition cradles us, limits us....[Runawayis] a big dish of Beluga caviar, [sailing] in on a sparkling bed of ice, with a mother-of-pearl spoon. You remember: This is why you eat, read, make love, whateverto be left silly with admiration and delight." Carolyn See,The Washington Post
