Synopses & Reviews
Here is a selection of Munro’s most accomplished and powerfully
affecting short fiction from the last two decades, a companion volume
to A Wilderness Station: Selected Stories, 1968–1994. These
stories encompass the fullness of human experience, from the wild
exhilaration of first love (in “Passion”) to the punishing consequences
of leaving home (“Runaway”) or ending a marriage (“The Children Stay”).
And in stories that Munro has described as “closer to the truth than
usual”—”Dear Life,” “Working for a Living,” and “Home”—we glimpse the
author’s own life.
Subtly honed with her hallmark precision,
grace, and compassion, these stories illuminate the quotidian yet
astonishing particularities in the lives of men and women, parents and
children, friends and lovers as they discover sex, fall in love, part,
quarrel, suffer defeat, set off into the unknown, or find a way to be in
the world.
Review
“Munro may have arrived at the end of her career, but her stories keep
changing, as works of art tend to do....Because Munro’s people often
act unpredictably—they wind up doing things they hadn’t known they were
going to do and startle themselves—the stories, even on repeated
readings, retain their original suspense, their sense that anything can
happen.” The New York Times Book Review
Review
“Turn to just about any page and you’ll discover a brilliant insight into human behavior....Family Furnishings reminds us that Munro is our greatest contemporary short story writer.” USA Today
Review
“What a stunning, subtle and sympathetic explorer of the heart Munro is.” The Washington Post
About the Author
Alice Munro grew up in Wingham, Ontario, and attended the University of
Western Ontario. She has published thirteen collections of stories and a
novel. During her distinguished career she has been the recipient of
many awards, including two Giller Prizes, the National Book Critics
Circle Award, and the Man Booker International Prize. In 2013 she was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, Granta, and many other publications, and her collections have been translated into thirteen languages.