Alice Munro

by Coral Ann Howells

Published 6 August 1998
This study of the work of Alice Munro explores the appeal of her fictions of small-town Canada with their precise attention to social surfaces and their fascination with local gossip and scandal. It highlights Munro's distinctive storytelling methods which combine the familiar and unfamiliar, slipping between realism and fantasy to make visible what is usually hidden in everyday life. These are women's narratives, full of silent female knowledge - of female bodies, love stories and romantic fantasies as well as female casualties.