Synopses & Reviews
Alice Munro is Canadas greatest short story writer. This book, the first full length study of her work published in Britain, explores the appeal of Munros fictions of small-town Canadian life with their precise attention to social surfaces and their fascination with local gossip and scandal. This is a world of open secrets, and Howells highlights Munros distinctive storytelling methods which combine the familiar and the unfamiliar, slipping between realism and fantasy to make visible what is usually hidden within everyday life. These are womens narratives, full of silent female knowledge--of female bodies, love stories and romantic fantasies as well as female casualties. Munro takes up the traditional subjects of womens fiction through her stories significantly female plots, stories of entrapment and escape attempts, where secrecy and silence become strategies of resistance. Munros enthusiasm for the work of other women writers from Emily Brontë and L. M. Montgomery to Eudora Welty is emphasized as Munro continues to experiment with the short story form, creating worlds which are both "touchable and mysterious."
Synopsis
This is the first full-length study of Alice Munro's work to be published in Britain. Highlights Munro's distinctive storytelling methods where everything becomes both 'touchable and mysterious'.
About the Author
Coral Ann Howells is Professor of English and Canadian Literature at the University of Reading.
Table of Contents
Series Editor's Foreword * List of Abbreviations * Chronology * Contexts and Intertexts * Ontario Gothic: 'Dance of the Happy Shades' and 'Something I've Meaning to Tell You' * Secrets and Discoveries: 'Lives of Girls and Women' * Only Formal Connections: 'The Beggar Maid' * Star Maps and Shifting Perspectives: 'The Moons of Jupiter' * The Art of Indeterminacy: 'The Progress of Love' * On Lies, Secrets and Silence: 'Friend of My Youth' * Taking Risks: 'Open Secrets' * Critical Overview and Conclusion * Notes * Select Bibliography * Index