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A review by mtshuffman
Runaway by Alice Munro
4.0
When I put this book on my to-read list, I kind of knew I would love Alice Munro's writing. It was just a feeling based on what I had read, and overall, the feeling was spot on. But Runaway is, for me, so close to my personal version of an ideal book that I got a little picky when things didn't go quite the way I wanted.
I liked how the characters were drawn and developed, the understated force of her writing style and how she stitched all the threads of the stories together. I liked the collection together and each story on its own, saving the last one, Powers, which didn't quite come together for me on the character or plot level and was clunky in the way it switched writing formats.
In the end, the big thing that held my heart back from really loving this collection was the overtone of sadness in all the stories. Maybe I'm projecting, but I get the feeling that Munro is one of those authors who equates sadness with seriousness and feels the need to make all her stories sad to be considered serious literature. The general dreariness was reinforced with these unusual plot points (the goat's death, Penelope's cult, the fate of Neil, the Lauren plot twist) that felt a little contrived so overall the effect is kind of a forced sadness.
I liked how the characters were drawn and developed, the understated force of her writing style and how she stitched all the threads of the stories together. I liked the collection together and each story on its own, saving the last one, Powers, which didn't quite come together for me on the character or plot level and was clunky in the way it switched writing formats.
In the end, the big thing that held my heart back from really loving this collection was the overtone of sadness in all the stories. Maybe I'm projecting, but I get the feeling that Munro is one of those authors who equates sadness with seriousness and feels the need to make all her stories sad to be considered serious literature. The general dreariness was reinforced with these unusual plot points (the goat's death, Penelope's cult, the fate of Neil, the Lauren plot twist) that felt a little contrived so overall the effect is kind of a forced sadness.