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Runaway is no exception. The stories take place throughout Canada--northern Ontario, the Prairies, the West Coast, Stratford--and feature women and men drifting in and out of each other's orbits, pulled by forces they don't understand. In "Runaway," a woman considers leaving her husband with the help of a neighbor, but the husband has other plans. In "Chance," a woman leaves her life behind in a quest for a man she met on a train crossing the country. Their intertwined lives play out through two more stories, "Soon" and "Silence," but the path they follow is as unpredictable to the reader as it is to them. In "Trespasses," a small town's women dream of escaping their lives only to find themselves in lives they never imagined.
What really marks the stories is Munro's sense of mood. There's a sense of hidden menace or even violence everywhere in Runaway. It occasionally erupts, but always in surprising and unexpected ways, and with unintended consequences. Munro may be an old-fashioned storyteller, but she understands chaos theory well enough. The same story? Sure. But it's a damn good one. --Peter Darbyshire, Amazon.ca
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Very good, red boards & burgundy end papers, unclipped, bubble wrapped, mylar pro:5* seller. At the centre of Runaway are three stories connected into one marvellously rich, long narrative, about Juliet - who escapes from teaching at a girls' school into a wild and passionate love match; then returns to the home of her parents, whose life and curious marriage she finally begins to examine; while in the third part of her story, her vanished child turns up caught in the grip of a religious cult. The whole picture emerges only when all the pieces of the jigsaw are finally in place. . Seller Inventory # ABE-1500224058077
Book Description Hard Cover. Condition: VG+. Dust Jacket Condition: VG+. First UK. VG+/VG+. 8vo. original red boards (a trifle rubbed & bumped) in dustwrapper priced £15.99 (publisher's promotional label on front cover, a trifle rubbed & creased); pp. [viii (last blank)], 340 (last blank). A very good copy. Seller Inventory # 029613
Book Description Hardback. A brilliant new collection from the matchless Munro who is recognized as one of the greatest living short story writers, and who makes art out of everyday lives. Her most powerful and compelling work yet. At the centre of Runaway are three stories connected into one marvellously rich, long narrative, about Juliet - who escapes from teaching at a girls' school into a wild and passionate love match; then returns to the home of her parents, whose life and curious marriage she finally begins to examine; while in the third part of her story, her vanished child turns up caught in the grip of a religious cult. The whole picture emerges only when all the pieces of the jigsaw are finally in place. The runaway of the disturbing title story is Carla, a congenital 'bolter', who has neighbourly fantasies that take on a frightening afterlife - Elsewhere, a stagestruck girl finds life is more Shakespearean than even she imagines; while Tessa, a young country woman with strange powers cannot foresee what will happen if she makes off with a plausible charmer. Munro's stories unravel layers of the past, and different versions of the truth: her characters learn that if you look too closely at anything - the past, the truth - it may crumble. Runaway is about the power and betrayals, and twists, of love, about lost children, lost chances. There is pain and desolation beneath the surface, like a needle in the heart, which makes them more powerful and compelling than anything she has written. Munro is a magician with words, but also with layers of life and emotion. 2005, First edition, first printing. A fine, unmarked and unread copy in a very good, unclipped d/w with light bumping on the head of the spine and a faint hint of sun fading of the spine. Scans available if required. Seller Inventory # 21436120