She’s a woman, a Canadian and a short story writer. But that hasn’t stopped Alice Munro from taking her rightful place in Western literature’s so-called canon. Munro—who’s been writing feverishly since 1968—is deified by her peers.
Jonathan Franzen wrote a fawning review in The New York Times Book Review that called Munro a ‘marvel’ and, amazingly, ‘the Great One.’ And you know what? He’s right. Munro’s stories are by turns spooky, funny, dark, risky, and gorgeous; so often, they strike a chord so honest that I feel my insides warm in a sort of curling ecstasy.
My favorite? “Carried Away”—the tale of a small-town librarian who exchanges increasingly intimate letters with a World War I soldier she’s never met. When he doesn’t contact her after returning home, she hunts for clues of his life through newspaper fragments while constructing a different life for herself. Obsession, dreams, time twists and a bit of the fairytale thread through the text.
I spent an enormous number of hours with "Carried Away" last fall, as it was half of essay for my writing program, and, happily, the essay didn't curdle the initial love.
"Carried Away" is available in Munro's Selected Stories, but you can check out Munro’s latest work in Runaway (inciter of Franzen’s fawning), which spent months on The New York Times bestseller list. That’s right—a highly esteemed literary author with popular appeal. It’s nice to finally have something we can all agree on.
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