Dear Life

apartment, and later to their house, she always sat in the front room, never coming into the kitchen unless Greta invited her. That was her way. She carried not noticing to an extreme. Not noticing, not intruding, not suggesting, though in every single household skill or art she left her ­daughter-­in-­law far behind.

   Also, she got rid of the apartment where Peter had been brought up and moved into a smaller one with no bedroom, just room for a foldout couch. So Peter can t go home to Mother? Greta teased her, but she seemed startled. Jokes pained her. Maybe it was a problem of language. But ­En­glish was her usual language now and indeed the only language Peter knew. He had learned Business ­Practice ­though not from his ­mother ­when Greta was learning Paradise Lost. She avoided anything useful like the plague. It seemed he did the opposite.

   With the glass between them, and Katy never allowing the waving to slow down, they indulged in looks of comic or indeed insane goodwill. She thought how ­nice-­looking he was, and how he seemed to be so unaware of it. He wore a brush cut, in the style of the ­time ­particularly if you were anything like an ­engineer ­and his ­light-­colored skin was never flushed like hers, never blotchy from the sun, but evenly tanned whatever the season.

   His opinions were something like his complexion. When they went to see a movie, he never wanted to talk about it afterwards. He would say that it was good, or pretty good, or okay. He ­didn t see the point in going further. He watched television, he read a book in somewhat the same way. He had patience with such things. The people who put them together were probably doing the best they could. Greta used to argue, rashly asking whether he would say th

inhabit. Time Out New York

Munro has an uncanny knack of convincing the reader that the characters have real lives before the stories commence and continuing existences after. . . . This is simply a good writer doing what she loves. The Guardian (London)

In acknowledging Alice Munro s pre-eminence in the world of contemporary short fiction it s become fashionable to describe her as the Canadian Chekhov, but that title barely hints at the scope of her literary influence. Dear Life, her 13th collection, only serves to burnish her reputation for creating intelligent, sophisticated stories out of inarguably humble materials. Minneapolis Star Tribune

Virtuosic. . . . Encompass a wide variety of always-unpredictable characters young, old, middle-aged caught in circumstances that have the bright erratic flow of life itself. The Seattle Times

Munro is who she is, and we are fortunate to have her. No other author can contain so much life, and so many lives, in such few pages. . . . They can be read over and over, dependably revealing more with each reading. The Miami Herald

Alice Munro has long been acknowledged as one of Canada s literary treasures. This new volume, with its historical slant, its autobiographical material, its impressionistic descriptions of scenery, its occasional nostalgia and pleasing irony, confirms her reputation. The Washington Times

How does Munro manage such great effects on a relatively small canvas? It s a question that most anyone who has seriously attempted to write a short story in the last 20 years has pondered. . . . Munro has a genius, no empty word here, for selecting details that keep unfolding in the reader s mind. Los Angeles Times

Reading Alice Munro is like drinking water one hardly notices the words, only the marvel at being quenched. . . . Behind each sentence is a world, conjured more distinctly than in many an entire novel. The Plain Dealer

Alice Munro . . . has earned every bit of her reputation as being one of the best living short story writers, in English if not in the entire world. . . . This collection represents fiction at its finest captivating, complex, lifelike. Richmond Times-Dispatch

These stories are perfect. . . . Dear Life is a collection as rich and surprising as any in Alice Munro s deep career. National Post

Alice Munro has always been the poet of the unexpected passion that comes seemingly out nowhere and changes a character s life. . . . She is, and has been for decades, one of our most important writers, one whose work represents all the most essential and pleasurable aspects of literature, and which reminds us of what great literature is: You know it when you see it. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Praise from fellow writers:

Her work felt revolutionary when I came to it, and it still does. Jhumpa Lahiri

She is one of the handful of writers, some living, most dead, whom I have in mind when I say that fiction is my religion. Jonathan Franzen

The authority she brings to the page is just lovely.   Elizabeth Strout

She s the most savage writer I ve ever read, also the most tender, the most honest, the most perceptive.   Jeffery Eugenides

Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can. Julian Barnes

She is a short-story writer who reimagined what a story can do.   Loorie Moore

There s probably no one alive who s better at the craft of the short story.   Jim Shepard

A true master of the form.   Salman Rushdie

A wonderful writer.   Joyce Carol Oates