Canadian writer Alice Munro died 13 May 2024. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013, and is noteworthy as a master of the short story. She recounts that the short story is all she had time to write when a mother of three young children, and that the habit just stuck. This collection contains some of her most noteworthy works, and gives you a good sense of the style and themes Munro highlights. All stories are set in Canada, mostly the province of Ontario, which she called home for most of her life.

Born in 1931, she came of age during World War II, no doubt witnessing the loss of sons and husbands to families, as well as those who returned, many of whom were never the same, with disabilities and PTSD. Older World War I veterans were also around as she grew up. Impacts of the Depression and World War on men and women overshadow many stories, all with subtlety. Another major factor is the change in the role of women, from the Forties of her youth, through the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies of her life as a wife and mother. The type, or lack, of education for women is predominant, since education was thought wasted if you were meant to be a wife, homemaker, and mother. As women move “off the farm”, wives of professional men, they are often more independent, traveling by train (although many never learned to drive a car). Nonetheless, we sense a certain smallness to their lives, with small villages and towns feeling repressive with the watchfulness and judgement of other women, the same women who would watch your children or cook a casserole for your family if you needed help.

One gets the feeling of Munro as anthropologist, reporting back on how women of different ages and circumstances adapt to their options, make life choices, or life-changing errors in judgement, putting all security at risk. Many of these women face unethical or immoral choices, and we are left to wonder about their thoughts and motives. Munro reports plainly, but does not judge. She mines childhood memories of neighbors and family, stories her mother told when Munro was a child, and stories she heard from women as a young mother, getting together for a coffee break while the children were at school. One example is Enid in “The Love of a Good Woman”, passed by for marriage, at-home nursing those sick and elderly of her town, she finally makes an ethically complicated choice when an old opportunity comes around again.

In “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage”, we follow Johanna, a hardworking orphan, now grown up and trying to find a stable financial situation, knowing her main assets and deficits: not an attractive woman, but capable of hard work, common sense, and practical financial choices. She finds a lazy drinker with some money, whom she believes she can shape up, at least until the next practical choice is needed. In “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”, we find a different sort of woman, Fiona, a beautiful, smart, active, life-of-the-party, who suffers dementia. After her husband must institutionalize her for her protection, we learn of his previous adulteries, and how he must navigate this relationship that is still so important to him. I could cite each and every story— they are original, have subtle twists that are true to how life goes, and the heroines don’t always make the smartest choices, not in their own best interests. One is always left contemplating their motives. Also included in this volume are stories that share real, personal stories from Munro’s life, including “Working for a Living”, “Home”, and “Dear Life.” They share the same raw honesty—Munro does not spare herself this eyes-wide-open, blunt reporting of truth.

I really love the feeling of being at the kitchen table with a group of middle-aged mothers, hearing their remembered stories, trying to silently figure out why people do what they do, seeking truth. In this year in which we lost Munro, celebrate by enjoying some of her most interesting work in this volume.