In the few other collections by Alice Munro I've read, the seams are visible to varying degrees. The autobiographical stories, particularly those in The View From Castle Rock, tend to lose precision of form and drift, as if the writer had settled for constructing repositories for memories. Or they maintain precision only to concentrate entirely on something that finally reads like the unremarkable fact before it's transmuted into fiction. And there are times in each when an incident seems forced, conventionally storylike. But the seams aren't visible in Runaway. Each one is taut. Each one seeks out and deftly navigates complex territory.
My two favorites of hers are "Fiction" from Too Much Happiness and the best story by far in Castle Rock, "The Ticket." From Runaway I'm pleased to add three more: "Chance," "Soon," and "Silence." These can be read separately or, since they share a main character, Juliet, as a novella in three sections, a life in three parts.
I haven't much cared for the brick-size total novel that tries to contain everything. I've been impressed and yet longueurs and digressions, an unavoidable hazard of the form, tend to blunt the overall impact. Munro presents another counterargument against it. Taken together, these three stories, without aiming to, appear to contain everything, or come just as close, if I may be so bold to suggest as a mere 31-year-old: The ordinary. The bizarre. Landscapes, sketched. Convincing dreams. Death. A brutal death that nevertheless causes little more than a ripple, the thought of which, in hindsight (if ever), engenders another kind of pain. Major and minor characters. Unpredictable turns in the path that quickly seem logical and familiar. Family dynamics. Generations of family. Sexual history. Blowups. Madness. Work. Class. Youth and old age. Personal failures, seen and unseen. A mystery from the past, brooded upon, never solved though perhaps accepted. The uncertainty of the future. The passage of time. All of it presented not as epic or the torrent of an epoch but condensed to a few slim linked tales centering upon one woman.
Elsewhere, she even manages to pull off a ludicrous plot twist. Rather than scoff, one is forced to acknowledge that, yes, ludicrous things happen too.
Here, more than in any of the other books, I get the sense that she's part of a highly select group: Chekhov and Carver. I'd add Runaway to my library. I'd recommend it as an introduction to her. More Munro, please.
