Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage - Rilegato

Munro, Alice

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0771065256 ISBN 13: 9780771065255

Casa editrice: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 2001

Riassunto

As always, Alice Munro surprises us. While the nine stories in this new collection could not be written by anyone else, they are subtly different. The title story, for example, ranges from small-town Ontario just after the war to a near-deserted hotel on the bald Saskatchewan prairie. The setting may be strange, uncharted Munro territory, but the plot is familiar, with two lives changed forever by a random act of mischief that can never be revealed.

“Floating Bridge” is also a typical Alice Munro story, but different. Forty-two-year-old Jinny is fighting cancer, and the front room in their middle-class home is turned into a sickroom. Her husband hires a girl to look after her, and they visit the girl’s trailer park relatives. Class tensions are exposed (“You know you’ll hurt their feelings,” he whispered. “They’re trying to be nice to you.”), and then something both unbelievable and totally believable happens to conclude the story in a way the reader will never forget.

Other stories contain lines that change the world. A promisingly flirtatious reunion with a teenage sweetheart, now married, takes an unexpected turn. (“About our youngest boy,” he said. “Our youngest boy was killed last summer.” Oh. “He was run over,” he said. “I was the one who ran over him. Backing out of our driveway.” I stopped again. He stopped with me. Both of us stared ahead. “His name was Brian. He was three.”)

In this great book by one of the world’s great writers, the settings may be Vancouver Island, small-town Ontario, Toronto, or Vancouver, but the stories are universal, and the characters – no, the people in the stories – are unforgettable.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

“Surely Munro’s best yet.” –The New York Times Book Review

“She is the living writer most likely to be read in a hundred years.” –Mona Simpson, The Atlantic Monthly

“One of the foremost practitioners of the art of the short story. . . . These tales have the intimacy of a family photo album and the organic feel of real life.” –The New York Times

“A writer to cherish. . . . The sheer spaciousness of Munro’s storytelling, her gift for surprising us with the truth about ourselves, has transcended national boundaries.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review

“In Munro’s hands, as in Chekhov’s, a short story is more than big enough to hold the world–and to astonish us, again and again.” —Chicago Tribune

From the Trade Paperback edition.

L'autore:

Alice Munro’s fame abroad is matched by the admiration she enjoys in Canada, where she has won the Governor General’s Award three times. Awards for her past collections include the W.H. Smith Prize in the U.K.; the National Book Circle Critics Award in the U.S.; the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction; the Rea Award for the Short Story; the Giller Prize, the Trillium Prize and the Libris Award. She lives in Ontario and British Columbia.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: McClelland & Stewart Inc.
• Data di pubblicazione: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0771065256
• ISBN 13: 9780771065255
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 336