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Runaway

3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 · rating details · 6,512 ratings · 729 reviews

The incomparable Alice Munro’s bestselling and rapturously acclaimed Runaway is a book of extraordinary stories about love and its infinite betrayals and surprises, from the title story about a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband, to three stories about a woman named Juliet and the emotions that complicate the luster of her...more

Paperback, 335 pages

Published November 8th 2005 by Vintage (first published 2004)

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Jan 08, 2010 brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

in 1997, the reigning king of redonda, a tiny island & micronation in the bahamas, was so moved by superstar spanish writer javier marias's novel todas las almas that he abdicated the throne and handed it to marias. weird shit. so marias confers the title of 'duke' and 'duchess' to certain people, amongst them:

john ashbery (duke of convexo)
pedro almodovar (duke of trémula)
frank gehry (duke of nervión)
w.g. sebald (duke of vértigo)
guillermo cabrera infante (duke of tigres)

every year all the d...more

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Feb 23, 2012 Tatiana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Margaret Atwood's fans

Recommended to Tatiana by: The New Yorker fiction podcast

Shelves: short-stories, 2012, contemporary, b

As seen on The Readventurer

Like many readers, I claim quite often that I am not really a fan of short stories, that is, I claim that until I come across the next good short story collection, like Alice Munro's Runaway. My imaginary dislike for shorts can surely be traced to reading too many poorly assembled multi-author anthologies. There are maybe two of them in existence that I can honestly call good. From my experience, single-author collections are much, much more satisfying.

Once again, I ha...more As seen on The Readventurer

Like many readers, I claim quite often that I am not really a fan of short stories, that is, I claim that until I come across the next good short story collection, like Alice Munro's Runaway. My imaginary dislike for shorts can surely be traced to reading too many poorly assembled multi-author anthologies. There are maybe two of them in existence that I can honestly call good. From my experience, single-author collections are much, much more satisfying.

Once again, I have a podcast to thank for discovering a new great author - this time, The New Yorker fiction podcast. The moment I finished listening to Munro's "Axis," I went straight to my digital public library to download me more of her stories.

What Alice Munro's stories remind me the most of are the works of another fabulous Canadian writer - Margaret Atwood, particularly The Blind Assassin and Cat's Eye. (Maybe Canadian books, similar to Australian, have a specific regional "flavor"? I am starting to believe they do, Canadian fiction tends to evokes feelings of cold, emptiness, spaciousness and loneliness in me.)

Munro's stories have the same structure, they are told through a prism of many years past, usually by a mature female narrator, who looks back in time and recollects a specific experience of her youth that changed the whole course of her life. The stories are told from a position of maturity and understanding, but with a feeling of a mild regret. In the present, decades later, those life-turning events do not sting as much as they used to, but the narrator knows unequivocally, they have changed EVERYTHING.

These events that Munro writes so beautifully about, can be quite trivial on the surface (like going on a wild car ride with one's passionless fiance's brother or being momentarily rude to an annoying passenger on a train) or traumatizing (appearance of a strange woman in a child's life who makes the strangest insinuations about the child's birth), but whatever these events are, they affect the narrator in a major way.

Munro's prose is deceptively simple and straightforward, but what she achieves with it is tremendous. Her fame as one of finest short story writers is well deserved. (less)

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May 07, 2011 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

Here's what Jonathan Franzen said about this book in the NY Times Book Review:

Basically, Runaway is 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.

But here's what Michiko Kakutani says about it in the NY Times:

Instead of assuming the organic, musical form of real life, they feel like self-conscious, overworked tales, relying on awkwardly withheld secrets and O'Henryesque twists to create narra...more

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May 08, 2008 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21stcenturyliterary, ocanada

Short stories can be deeply unsatisfying. Too often the nuance overshadows character and plot development, as if the author is cruelly trying to offer the reader a tiny taste of a story before yanking it away again. No so with Alice Munro. She writes with such simplicity and economy and mystery. The mystery arises from the way that she presents each story--just a few words at the outset, perfectly descriptive, but never overly so. And then the rest of it is just like (**alert**be prepared for ti...more

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Aug 26, 2008 Shair rated it 3 of 5 stars

Alice Munro is an amazing short story writer. Runaway is yet another example of her mastery of the craft. Realistic, vividly drawn characters. Well-developed plots. Insight and wisdom about human nature . . . about choices and defining moments. Check, check, check. As always, she seems wise, like someone who, for better or worse, understands exactly how we humans work.

I was also interested in some of the recurring themes here: the nature of power, particularly for her characters, mostly women i...more

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May 02, 2008 Abby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I was a little reluctant to begin reading more work by Alice Munro, as the images burned into my brain by "Wild Swans" have never fully left.
This collection is not nearly so haunting as I remember Alice Munro's other stories, and therefore also more enjoyable. Some of the pieces, notably "Runaway" and "Grace," had me forgetting that I was reading Alice Munro, and not that other prolific Canadian author, Margaret Atwood. Maybe there is something similar about the two writers, or maybe there is ju...more

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Jun 26, 2012 Askwhy rated it 4 of 5 stars

You can't read Alice Munro without facing the absolutely voluminous effusions about her, her works, her everything. They line the beginings for one, whole pages of them; and if you were to google her, much as the 21st ultra-curious-always-cynical-never-credulous reader is liable to do, you'll only find more of the same endless, relentless walls of approbation before you too throw your hands up and say, "Fine, I believe she's a great writer." And if you're like me then that skepticism never quite...more You can't read Alice Munro without facing the absolutely voluminous effusions about her, her works, her everything. They line the beginings for one, whole pages of them; and if you were to google her, much as the 21st ultra-curious-always-cynical-never-credulous reader is liable to do, you'll only find more of the same endless, relentless walls of approbation before you too throw your hands up and say, "Fine, I believe she's a great writer." And if you're like me then that skepticism never quite leaves you and as a result the book you read is ever trying to prove itself to you, that yes it absolutely justifies the hype that it -and its creator- effortlessly emanate. It's not the best spirit to carry into any book, but what can you do really.

I guess at this point the highest praise I can give is that Munro and Runaway never disappoint (you can scarcely live up to expectations as dizziling up as the ones I had - I thought justifiably - given those superlative-busting reviews). She writes capital-S Short Stories: vignettes that are first and foremost enjoyable tales that is neither the overt vehicle for strained metaphors nor the didactic parable (to borrow a DFWean expression) that the so many short stories by ambitious literary types tend to be. They - her stories - are utterly genuinely; they - the characters - are exquisitely limned, even if you could make a case that they're all so similar and she's had so much practice writing what essentially are a roving cast of the same person that she must become good at it; but they (everything) draw you in so inescpaably that you - cliche as this is - always dread their ending: doubly so because her resolutions are always sufficiently nebulous leaving you to cry inwardly for more, more. Which is itself the mark of an amazing writer, you could say.

Runaway contains 8 short stories of varying lengths. They are unvaryingly romantic - in every connotation of the word -, so ingenuous it shakes you, so believable it scares you. They are soulful fugues tuned to the quientessence keys of life: major chords of capital-L Life, happiness, love; minor keys of loss and despair. They do read like absolute first-rate romance stories, impeccably styled and never maudlin, never unnaturally exuberant (maybe not at all like a romance story then - I kid).

The first tale, the eponymous piece, is one that will grip you - certainly the most thriller-ish, most mainstream-ish (in the literary aminstream? If there's such a thing) of the octet - and for me one of the two strongest, most distinct for its quite brilliant, lightly gimmicky, denoument. Three form a sort of quasi-trilogy - but really, bar a continuous cast, barely distinguish each other from the other 5 apparently disparate ones. The best piece is, in my opinion, the last: a gestalt of the bucolic, the magical-realistic and the romantic that works so well that my words here will never do it justice. It's evocative and non-instrusively didactic the way only great stories ever are.

Munro's style of prose is deceptively simple. Hers is an exceptionally loaquacious voice that's as gently fluid as the most delicate rivulet; prose that invites with its simplciity, never patronizing, never pontificating. Having last read - read: attempted - Faulkner, Runaway was such a breath of fresh air: suddenly a rush of oxygen after the near carbon-monoxide poisoning Faulkner's hyper-compressed-compacted-cuban prose induced. She writes with no sleigh-of-hands, with all cards shown on the table. Her genuineness shines, above all else. It's pleasant without ever being ingratiating.

Given how much I too am waxing lyrical you'll no doubt wonder why I don't give it 5 stars. Well: reading Runaway I always had this feeling that Munro had more to give. Why wasn't this a novel; why couldn't more be said about this; why this, that? Her understatement, her simplicity are carried forward almost to a fault. She almost deliberately shields the reader from learning more, and you're left craning your neck and straining, cursing. And then there are her lightly cryptic endings, almost the prosaic equilvalent of the coy 18th-century princess who only ever hints but never shows, a terrible tease. Whether they are major enough detractions to merit a 4-star is subjective I suppose, but from the mastery Munro so effortless evinces I do get the feeling she could do more, if only she wanted to badly enough.

Still, Runaway remains quite brilliant an anthology of short stories. It's almost the spiritual anti-thesis of DFW's (why do I keep using DFW as a barometer, hmm) works, yet utterly, utterly irresistible, unfailingly readable and supremely addictive in the same way. It's my first Munro and after this it certainly won't be the last. I highly recommend it.
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Feb 01, 2009 Jane rated it 2 of 5 stars

I didn't realize this was a book of short stories when I bought it. It's my first book of short stories. I've decided that I don't care much for short stories. The characters and stories aren't developed enough. Her stories were a bit bizarre, mostly with endings I didn't like. Parts of the stories are interesting and I kept expecting them to get better and then I'd get disappointed. The only one I liked was the second to the last story. I think it was called Tricks. The last story I didn't unde...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it · review of another edition

Often compared to Eudora Welty, Anton Chekhov, and James Joyce, Munro is a brilliant short story-writer. She mines the small towns of her native Ontario for inspiration, penning short stories (30-40 pages each) that possess the depth of novels. Runaway, her tenth collection, contains her trademark unconventional plots and lost characters. Critics agree that the suspense and drama lodged within the characters give each story its power. Like the best writers, Munro involves readers in her characte

...more

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Apr 06, 2012 Larry Buhl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's hard to rate a volume of short stories. Each story should probably be rated on its own. I read all but one and a half in this collection. I'm going to sit on the fence with three overall.

This is my first exposure to Munro. She has a powerful command of her craft. Not all stories resonated with me. In fact only the last in the three-story series about a woman named Juliet (at three different points in her life) and the story "Tricks" were amazing. A woman is central to every story, and the t...more

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Jan 13, 2009 Carrie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was given this book as a birthday gift from my aunt, and I had sort of forgotten I had it until recently. It’s hard to give gifts to a bookworm, but this was an excellent choice. I always enjoy Munro’s work when I run across it in the The New Yorker or wherever, but I don’t usually think to purchase her books or pick them up the library.

I first ran into Munro in high school. My English teacher gave us two stories two read - her “Open Window” and that story by Steven King that is the Hawthorne...more I was given this book as a birthday gift from my aunt, and I had sort of forgotten I had it until recently. It’s hard to give gifts to a bookworm, but this was an excellent choice. I always enjoy Munro’s work when I run across it in the The New Yorker or wherever, but I don’t usually think to purchase her books or pick them up the library.

I first ran into Munro in high school. My English teacher gave us two stories two read - her “Open Window” and that story by Steven King that is the Hawthorne pastiche (“The Man in Black”, or something like that). The point was supposed to be how deep and meaningful and wonderful the Munro was and how shallow and crappy the King story was in comparison. My teacher had very definite ideas of what he thought was good and what was not.

I think that it was a bogus exercise – Munro and King are hardly out to do the same kind of work, and I think Stephen King can actually be a pretty great writer when he chooses, but that’s for another post about literary snobbery and the different reasons to read different things. Even though I look back at the experience with a somewhat sour taste in my mouth, I am grateful to my teacher for introducing me to the complex, textured, chewy stories of Alice Munro. For there no doubt (as the cover of Runaway trumpets) that she has “a strong claim to being the best fiction writer working in North America.” Her stories cover a slice of a life (usually a women’s life), but say so much in each story that you can unpick them forever. They read like mysteries to me – there is so much left unsaid, and you read the story trying to figure out what happened and what will happened and why it happened and what really went on. Munro is particularly apt, I think, at capturing both how one decision can alter a persons’ entire life, and how women (especially in the earlier part of this century) made decisions about their lives with almost no forethought at all, and paid for it, sometimes dearly.

This is also what can make me crazy about her work. I feel like, even though the tales are different, some of the themes are themes I have heard before. Like her literary twin, Margaret Atwood, that other Canadian writing star, she writes a lot of stories about sad women whose lives haven’t turned out right – they married the wrong man, or their husbands left them, or they never got married at all, and they are sad and incomplete because of it. There are a lot of stories about women in the 1950’s or 1960’s who got married because it was the thing to do, and paid the price. These tales are well crafted and have her customary insight into human behavior, but I am tired of such stories. I want to read about women whose problems are caused by their careers – or by outside circumstances – or because they purposefully made bad choices. Her protagonists are too often acted upon – not the prime actors in their own stories. Not all women are sad and miserable and held back, ladies. Maybe it’s a generational thing – maybe my generation of women does not understand what it was like – but while I enjoy, really enjoy these two writers, I find myself frustrated with their worldview – like, it’s not that bad to be a woman. And women are allowed to make planned choices about their own lives – not everyone just drifts into life without deciding upfront what they want. Some of us do have agency over our lives. I don’t think I am expressing this dissatisfaction that clearly – I did enjoy this book, particularly the stories “Tricks” and “Powers” – but something about it maddened me as well.(less)

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Aug 12, 2007 Elaine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mainstreamlitfic, shortstorycollections

As Jonathan Franzen says, Alice Munro is indeed the underappreciated master of the short story. Her stories are filled with quiet moments, wonderfully, empathetically observed human detail and surprising plot developments that bring great aesthetic pleasure. Her style is unassuming, no verbal pyrotechnics here, but just solid story-telling, at a measured pace that guides the reader with a sure and confident hand. And she never fails to illuminate the Canadian landscape and countryside that form...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Greg Ivey rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a really insightful collection about spirituality, family, and the inevitable stresses they cause where they overlap. Munro has an incredible skill for creating complex characters quickly, weaving them from snippets of dialog and action, and then sending them off through minefields of Big Things and Little Things.

I did not throw this book, but I did set it down and walked away a bunch of times.

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Nov 07, 2011 Thing Two rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: giller-prizes-winner, books-you-might-have-missed, country-canada, books-favorite-fiction, commonwealth-writer-s-nominee, ala-notable-book-for-adults, nyt-notable-book, short-stories

Alice Munro - you can't just read her once. You've got to read her again, and again, and again.

Her stories written about women and men who live lives like you and me - quietly going about their days, wondering if they missed out on that great big love, or that great big chance; arguing with their children, or their parents, or both; pretending that life is grand, pretending that life isn't pointless.

She writes lush, beautiful tales which are long and enjoyable to read. I'm reading her again, so...more

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Apr 24, 2012 Matt added it

If Alice Munro built a bridge out of popsicle sticks to cross the Colorado River at any point, I wouldn't hesitate to step on it. Whatever there is to say about her genius, and there's a lot, we have to say, of all the instruments she commands as a writer, *structure* is the one with which she is most masterful. This is how she's a realist--not because all the people in her stories wear pants (when appropriate) and none have nipples that light up like flashlights on touch, but because meaning an...more If Alice Munro built a bridge out of popsicle sticks to cross the Colorado River at any point, I wouldn't hesitate to step on it. Whatever there is to say about her genius, and there's a lot, we have to say, of all the instruments she commands as a writer, *structure* is the one with which she is most masterful. This is how she's a realist--not because all the people in her stories wear pants (when appropriate) and none have nipples that light up like flashlights on touch, but because meaning and significance and trajectory gather as if on their own powers, through the accumulation of pieces and the order in which they arrive. The stories gather together. They are plotted in the most Aristotelian way, in which plot is "the arrangement of incidents." Munro says that if, in drafting, "I feel a part that's wrong [...] I pay attention to the story as it were really happening somewhere, not just in my head, and in its own way, not mine."

I've also read Munro saying that she conceives of a short story--and she's talking here about her experience as a reader--"not as if it were a road, taking me somewhere, with views and neat diversions along the way [...]. It's more like a house. Everybody knows what a house does, how it encloses space and makes connections between one enclosed space and another and presents what is outside in a new way."

That's what makes these stories so pleasurable--they open up to the reader, they reveal rooms and nooks and corners and turns and staircases as you make your way inside. They're never interested in forcing you or controlling you (though of course they are). They surprise you like life does, in messy, hilarious, uncanny ways. How one piece fits to the previous is part of the meaning. The form conveys emotional content. (Isn't it so interesting she doesn't write novels? It suggests to me that that the magic of her stories requires a limited span, an impending end; too much space and they become jumbled, unclear, diffuse.)

While Runaway isn't as good as Too Much Happiness , it is still Munro. (less)

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Mar 22, 2012 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, library

I've never read Alice Munro before—well, maybe a story or two here and there (though I don't get The New Yorker so I wouldn't ordinarily run into them). And here's a whole book, and it's devastating. She packs more detail and character into 20 pages than most writers get into a novel, and everything adds up to misunderstandings and missed opportunities which lead to disappointed lives. But it's exhilarating, because she brings you inside those lives—lives of Canadian women, from the '20s to the...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 5 of 5 stars

I can think of no better short story writer than Alice Munro.
She is able to evoke a whole world with few words. Without
spoiling any of the stories or their outcomes here are some
of the ideas on which the stories are based.

In this collection I especially liked the title story 'Runaway'.
An abused woman seeks refuge with her neighbor, an enlightened
woman who tries to help her. As in most cases of domestic violence
things do not turn out as neatly as one might predict.

I enjoyed the trilogy about a wo...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Roberto Macias rated it 1 of 5 stars

I am a serious fan of short stories. Like Aphorismos, I think they are a much bigger expression of prose than the long texts, since the author must be concise and convey the whole idea in a shorter text. No room for babbling. Now as for Munro, well her short stories ar insightful, langague is clean and developed, an she has a clearly piercing mind. But that's it, she does not have the lucidity of the great authors, I agree with the prologue that short stories do not get the credit they deserve,...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

De la littérature canadienne contemporaine, on retient le plus souvent les noms de Margaret Atwood ou Michael Ondaatje. On oublie à tort celui d’Alice Munro, pourtant célébrée par ses pairs (Jonathan Franzen, Joyce Carol Oates et Alan Hollinghurst pour ne citer qu’eux). Publié en 2004 et aussitôt couronné de multiples prix littéraires, Fugitives, recueil de huit nouvelles, a paru en France lors de la rentrée littéraire de septembre 2008. Carla, Sylvia, Juliet, Grace, Lauren, Robin… C’est de la v...more De la littérature canadienne contemporaine, on retient le plus souvent les noms de Margaret Atwood ou Michael Ondaatje. On oublie à tort celui d’Alice Munro, pourtant célébrée par ses pairs (Jonathan Franzen, Joyce Carol Oates et Alan Hollinghurst pour ne citer qu’eux). Publié en 2004 et aussitôt couronné de multiples prix littéraires, Fugitives, recueil de huit nouvelles, a paru en France lors de la rentrée littéraire de septembre 2008. Carla, Sylvia, Juliet, Grace, Lauren, Robin… C’est de la vie quotidienne de ces femmes, éphémères héroïnes, qu’il est question ; une vie marquée par les joies et les revers de l’amour, les moments de doute, les instants d’épiphanie et les déceptions soudaines – déceptions qui poussent parfois à la fuite, motif récurrent du recueil. A travers ces portraits de femmes, de tous âges et de toutes conditions, Alice Munro développe une conception personnelle du temps qui passe. Si la chronologie de ses nouvelles est à ce point bousculée, c’est bien parce la vie de Juliet, Grace et les autres ne prend sens que dans la mise en résonance d’événements apparemment disjoints. Dans « Subterfuges », histoire d’une vie gâchée par la méprise d’un instant (qui rappelle à plus d’un titre « La Parure » de Maupassant), Robin repense à sa relation avec Daniel et conclut : « c’était dans un autre monde qu’ils s’étaient rencontrés ». Il s’agit aussi pour Munro de jouer avec les temporalités, comme pour nous confondre un peu plus.

Pour autant, Alice Munro ne cherche pas à démontrer quoi que ce soit, pas plus qu’elle ne s’embarrasse d’explications. Pourquoi Penelope coupe-t-elle les ponts avec sa mère, qu’elle a toujours aimée et respectée (« Silence ») ? Pourquoi Carla décide-t-elle subitement, quelques heures après sa fuite, de revenir dans les bras d’un mari qui la méprise (« Fugitives ») ? L’ambiguïté permanente qui pèse sur les faits et gestes de ces femmes donne aux nouvelles de Munro une tonalité énigmatique, proche du rêve ou du fantasme. Ainsi la chèvre de Carla, que l’on pensait perdue, émerge-t-elle d’un halo de lumière et de brouillard, alors même que Carla est elle aussi « rentrée au bercail ». Symbole ironique du désir retrouvé ? Manifestation de l’inconscient ? Rien n’est sûr. De même, le recueil se termine sur un rêve d’échappement à soi et de désagrégation du corps. La juxtaposition de l’ordinaire et de l’étrange est une constante chez Munro. Il appartient au lecteur de lui donner du sens, au-delà de l’effet poétique.

Car la force poétique de l’écriture de Munro est indéniable, et se retrouve d’ailleurs dès les titres. Les huit nouvelles qui composent Fugitives portent un titre à terme unique : « Fugitives », « Hasard », « Bientôt », « Silence », « Passion », « Offenses », « Subterfuges », « Pouvoirs ». Nombreux sont les écrivains qui chérissent ces titres réduits à leur plus simple expression, et parmi eux, Dennis Cooper, qui déclarait vouloir « suggérer la poésie, à travers une compression ; montrer qu’un mot peut signifier beaucoup en même temps si vous y prêtez attention ». Cette compression, Alice Munro la pousse à l’extrême en revenant une fois encore à la nouvelle comme forme d’expression. La sobriété stylistique, le choix d’un lexique relativement réduit, la brièveté de la phrase poussent à une recherche permanente du poétique derrière le prosaïque. La frontière est parfois poreuse, comme le souligne Nancy dans sa lettre à Ollie (« Pouvoirs ») : « et quant à moi, je ne suis pas sûre d’avoir aimé le mot ‘prosaïque’. Je ne sache pas que nous vivions dans un endroit plus prosaïque que n’importe quel autre, et que voudriez-vous qu’il soit – poétique ? »

D’aucuns penseront, à la lecture de Fugitives, au roman de Rachel Cusk Arlington Park (dont la traduction a également paru aux Éditions de l’Olivier). Mais à l’univers fermé et étouffant de la banlieue anglaise, c’est ici les beautés du paysage canadien qui nous sont données à voir, reflets du soleil sur les Grands Lacs ou bourgades enneigées de l’Ontario. Loin des vies claustrophobes de femmes au foyer désespérées, les héroïnes d’Alice Munro gardent une part de secret, échappent à toute tentative de définition, et ce malgré le « poids de réalité » qui pèse sur leur existence.(less)

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Jan 14, 2011 Bronwyn Rykiert rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook

I was very disappointed with this story. I think the cover story was misleading, it mentions Juliet and her wild & passionate love match, it wasn’t in the first 5 tapes which is as far as I got before I realized it was not getting any better and the first story was not mentioned at all.

Story 1 – Runaway

Is the story of Carla who is not happy with her marriage to Clarke and with the help of her next door neighbour she gets on a bus to Toronto only to get off it early and call Clarke to pick he...more

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Dec 05, 2009 Bob rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of these stories has a happy ending but I think it was by accident. Actually, I commented about the last collection of her stories I read that I like the occasions when she has more than one story about the same set of characters, as they can collectively approach more of a novella length. This collection has three stories about the same characters, covering 40 years or so. Things look a little hopeful when the central character is young but a series of disappointments follow - life is just...more

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Jul 19, 2009 Megan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I know we're not supposed to use the word "perfect" when describing books or authors; the art of fiction is too subjectively interpreted for that. Nor does the word "perfect" imply me to be particularly discriminating. But having just finished Alice Munro's book of short stories, Runaway, I'm tempted to say convention be damned and this book is near perfect.

Munro's genius is that she almost convinces the reader that she's a realist. But, without knowing it at first, the reader (or at least this...more I know we're not supposed to use the word "perfect" when describing books or authors; the art of fiction is too subjectively interpreted for that. Nor does the word "perfect" imply me to be particularly discriminating. But having just finished Alice Munro's book of short stories, Runaway, I'm tempted to say convention be damned and this book is near perfect.

Munro's genius is that she almost convinces the reader that she's a realist. But, without knowing it at first, the reader (or at least this reader) starts to pick up notes and moments of hyper-realism. And I don't mean that in some high-falutin lit-crit kind of way. I just made up the term, in fact. But here's what I mean by it: Woolf, and Eliot, and James all did this: they could write a human character BETTER than life can. The inner-workings and psychological nuances of any given character designed by these four authors utterly transcends any real person's own self-awareness or awareness of others. To get back to Munro specifically, her ability to cut a cross-section of a moment or a feeling is transcendental of any actual moment or feeling. (Unless we're talking about the perceptions of an enlightened Zen priest here, but I'm going to guess that's not our average reader in this case.)

For example, in my favorite story of the collection, "Chance," a young, meek teacher spits in the face of her own character by showing up unannounced at the house of a man she once met quite briefly, albeit romantically, on a train:

"She can tell by his voice that he is claiming her. She stands up, quite numb, and sees that he is older, heavier, more impetuous than she has remembered. He advances on her and she feels herself ransacked from top to bottom, flooded with relief, assaulted by happiness. How astonishing this is. How close to dismay."

The description of happiness as an assault; being ransacked by nothing in particular but nonetheless being ransacked "top to bottom;" the comparison of happiness and dismay. I challenge anyone: have you ever been able to diagnose yourself this astutely?(less)

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May 16, 2009 Nicola rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have been resisting Alice Munro for some time now--too popular, too NYer-y, but after reading this collection I get it. I found many of her stories slow to start, just simmering, but then there's tiny fish eyes that get larger and larger until finally they turn into whales' eyes, if you will. But she doesn't stop there at the twist or climax-there's always some burns to be had and reflected upon.

In fact, most of these twists are recognized far later, far past their actual occurrence-think "Tr...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Vivek Tejuja rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When you read a collection of stories by Alice Munro, you need to give yourself a lot of time to intake what you have read. To so to say, “soak in” the experience. Her stories speak to you, they communicate in a manner you never thought they would. They astound you, they leave you speechless and sometimes they also wrench your heart – that is the power of Alice Munro’s short stories.

“Runaway” by Alice Munro is the first read of the year for me and I could not be happier for choosing this one. He...more When you read a collection of stories by Alice Munro, you need to give yourself a lot of time to intake what you have read. To so to say, “soak in” the experience. Her stories speak to you, they communicate in a manner you never thought they would. They astound you, they leave you speechless and sometimes they also wrench your heart – that is the power of Alice Munro’s short stories.

“Runaway” by Alice Munro is the first read of the year for me and I could not be happier for choosing this one. Her characters are lost and sometimes miserable. They are regular people, spread across the terrain she knows best – Canada. Having said that, the emotions and situations almost remain the same. It could happen to anyone, what happens to her characters – they fall in love, they experience the disappearance of a loved one, they are unsure and above all they are just human.

Alice Munro’s writing is of a quiet kind. Nothing monumental happens at the start of the story. It is just a build-up to what takes you by surprise or sometimes shock at the end of the story or in the middle. There are layers to her short stories, which sometimes cannot be found in a novel.

“Runaway” is a collection of stories about men and women who while appear sane and normal on the surface (so to say), there is a lot of emotional burden seething under. At the same time, they flow with the tide and give in to situations. Be it a housewife who wants to run away from her husband and life in the title story to a collection of three inter-linked stories about a woman Juliet and her life as it spans across time and relationships. Or it could also be of a girl grown up with her hippie and care-free parents, and waits as life unfolds in front of her, in an unexpected manner.

There is no other short-story writer I have loved more in recent times than Munro. Maybe Lydia Davis but that’s that I guess. A short story according to me anyway is more difficult to write a novel. As Jonathan Franzen, says in his introduction to the book, “I like stories because they leave the writer no place to hide”. This is so true. Short stories demand a lot from writers and sometimes only a master at her craft like Munro can deliver almost every single time. I would also highly recommend Franzen’s introduction to the book, which is a superb insight to the art of short-story telling and available only as a part of the UK edition.

I am very happy that I have read only two of her collections, because there is so much more to read of hers, so much to take in – the charm and lives of small cities, of how life goes on, of how it unfolds, little by little and does not stop there. Munro’s characters take a shape and form of their own. Her words get formed, slowly and steadily, till they become solid structures, which readers can go back to time and again. Here is one writer, who I hope continues writing, a lot more. (less)

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Jan 07, 2012 Courtney Gustafson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Perhaps I'm handing out five star reviews too liberally, but Alice Munro deserves nothing less. I usually like to read books of short stories one story at a time, separated by novels or other stories, like a palate cleanser. Otherwise they all blend together. But with Munro this was simply not an option. I finished the title story (which, by the way, very nearly made me cry over the description of a lost little white goat named Flora) and moved immediately to the next one. And the next one. And...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Julia rated it 3 of 5 stars

i always feel guilty regarding alice munro because a couple years ago or so i read another collection of hers, 'the love of a good woman,' and simply never finished the last story. the book sits on my bookcase with the bookmark in the middle of the last story still in it but i can't really bring myself to take it out and just finish it. so when i was at goodwill a couple weeks ago and saw this munro i of course had to buy it. yes i am that person who goes to goodwill and buys a book.
anyway this...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Joe Krudys rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction, short-stories

I decided to read this book based on a recommendation in Jonathan Franzen's book Farther Away. Not only will I be reading other recommendations by Franzen, I'll be reading more of Alice Munro as well.

I find Munro's writing style pleasing. Concise and to the point, while still being descriptive, not only with regards to the story, but more importantly, the characters. With hardly a wasted word, Munro packs a lot of feeling into a short story, requiring you to care about her characters in such a l...more

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Dec 10, 2009 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm reading this book as I fly on airplanes and it is perfect for that: satisfying, but not so complicated that a tired mind has to go back and reread sentences over to just string the paragraph together sense-wise. She is a satisfying writer, just with descriptions like "The trails were deep in mud, the long grass soaking, leaves overhead sending down random showers...." Just analyze the construction of each phrase of that, how much she packed into each and yet they slide across the imagination...more

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Nov 12, 2009 sleeps9hours rated it 1 of 5 stars

I had heard great things about Alice Munro, but I didn’t enjoy this collection much. Maybe I didn’t start with her best work, but I am not excited to read more.

From "Soon"—
‘My faith isn’t so simple,’ said Sara...’I can’t describe it. But it’s—all I can say—it’s something. It’s a—wonderful—something. When it gets really bad for me—when it gets so bad I—you know what I think then? I think, all right. I think—Soon. Soon I’ll see Juliet.'
...
But she had not protected Sara. When Sara had said, soon I’...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Eleanor added it · review of another edition

After reading a few of Munro's stories in the New Yorker and other places over the years, I finally decided to venture into an entire collection. These stories are wonderful, haunting offerings. They seem, often, to begin with a delicate or brash character (a sort of extreme, I suppose) and then, at a certain point, strip her down with the truth.

I am also intrigued by the multiple stories about the same character (Juliet). I really enjoyed this -- she is recognizable in each story, but they are...more

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About Alice Munro

Alice Ann Munro, née Laidlaw (born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short-story writer who is widely considered one of the world's premier fiction writers. Munro is a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction. Her stories focus on human relationships looked at through the lens of daily life. She has thus been referred to as "the Canadian Chekhov."

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Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

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Quotes from Runaway

“The conversation of kisses. Subtle, engrossing, fearless, transforming.” — 31 people liked it

“This is what happens. You put it away for a little while, and now and again you look in the closet for something else and you remember, and you think, soon. Then it becomes something that is just there, in the closet, and other things get crowded in front of it and on top of it and finally you don't think about it at all.

The thing that was your bright treasure. You don't think about it. A loss you could not contemplate at one time, and now it becomes something you can barely remember.

This is what happens.

...

Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.” — 30 people liked it

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