The Love of a Good Woman - (Vintage International) by Alice Munro (Paperback)

About the Book

In perhaps her boldest collection to date, short story master Munro evokes the vagaries of love, the tension and deceit that lie in wait under the polite surfaces of society, and the strange, often comical desires of the human heart.

Book Synopsis

In eight "riveting [and] lovely" (San Francisco Chronicle) stories, Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro stunningly explores the strange, often comical desires of the human heart.

"Superb . . . dazzling . . . Munro's feel for her own characters is as pure as Chekhov's."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"Munro is indisputably a master. . . . A better book of stories can scarcely be imagined."--The Washington Post Book World

Mining the silences and dark discretions of provincial life, the eight tales in The Love of a Good Woman lay bare the seamless connections and shared guilt that bind even the loneliest of individuals. A stroke victim expresses his deepest secret to a young bride in what may be the last act of intimacy left in him. A daughter confronts her father with the open secret of his life. And in the riveting title story, a selfless nurse tending a dying patient discovers the social utility of lies.

Sparklingly detailed, unwaveringly courageous, these are stories that extend the limits of fiction.

Review Quotes

"Superb . . . Long ago, Virginia Woolf described George Eliot as one of the few writers 'for grown-up people.' The same might today, and with equal justice, be said of Alice Munro."--Michael Gorra, New York Times Book Review

"A writer for the ages."--Dan Cryer, Newsday

"Alice Munro is indisputably a master. Like all great writers, she helps sharpen perception. . . . Her imagination is fearless. . . . A better book of stories can scarcely be imagined."--Greg Varner, Washington Post Book World

"A riveting collection . . . a lovely book. Munro's stories move through the years with a sneaky grace."--Georgia Jones-Davis, San Francisco Chronicle

"A triumph . . . certain to seal her reputation as our contemporary Chekhov."--Carol Shields, Mirabella

"Superlative . . . [Munro] distills a novel's worth of dramatic events into a story of twenty pages."--Erik Huber, Time Out

"These astonishing stories remind us, yet again, of the literary miracles Alice Munro continues to perform."--Francine Prose, Elle

About the Author

Alice Munro grew up in Wingham, Ontario, and attended the University of Western Ontario. She has published thirteen collections of stories as well as a novel, Lives of Girls and Women, and two volumes of Selected Stories. During her distinguished career she has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including three of Canada's Governor General's Literary Awards and two of its Giller Prizes, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Literary Award, England's W. H. Smith Book Award, 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, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, Granta, and other publications, and her collections have been translated into thirteen languages. She lives in Clinton, Ontario, near Lake Huron.