Reading Alice Munro's Breakthrough Books - by Struthers & Ailsa Cox & Corinne Bigot & Catherine Sheldrick Ross (Hardcover)

About the Book

This engaging volume provides an authoritative assessment of the middle period in the career of the widely-read, Nobel Prize-winning short story writer Alice Munro

Book Synopsis

What in terms of Alice Munro's creative artistry and creative power allowed her to become the first and only short story writer, the first and only Canadian, and just the thirteenth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Literature? And exactly when during Munro's career did her artistry and power advance to ensure that she would earn such world-wide renown? The answers lie in studying the boldly innovative yet greatly under-examined group of her four mid-career breakthrough books. Our volume therefore provides a carefully orchestrated analysis of Munro's subtle yet potent handling of form, technique and style both within individual stories and across these special collections. Reading Alice Munro's Breakthrough Books: A Suite in Four Voices not only addresses a significant vacancy in Munro criticism - and, by extension, in all short story criticism - but, equally importantly, offers an exciting new model for how criticism can be collectively written.

From the Back Cover

[headline] This engaging volume provides an authoritative assessment of the middle period in the career of the widely-read, Nobel Prize-winning short story writer Alice Munro What in terms of Alice Munro's creative artistry and creative power allowed her to become the first and only short story writer, the first and only Canadian, and just the thirteenth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Literature? And exactly when during Munro's career did her artistry and power advance to ensure that she would earn such world-wide renown? The answers lie in studying the boldly innovative yet greatly under-examined group of her four mid-career breakthrough books. This volume provides a carefully orchestrated analysis of Munro's subtle yet potent handling of form, technique and style both within individual stories and across these special collections. Reading Alice Munro's Breakthrough Books: A Suite in Four Voices not only addresses a significant vacancy in Munro criticism - and, by extension, in all short story criticism - but equally importantly offers an exciting new model for how criticism can be collectively written. [bios] J.R. (Tim) Struthers taught full-time at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, from 1985 until 2022. Ailsa Cox is Emerita Professor of Short Fiction at Edge Hill University, UK. Corinne Bigot is Maîtresse de Conférences of Postcolonial Literatures at Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, France. Catherine Sheldrick Ross was until her death Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.

Review Quotes

The contributors to this book have done an incredible job in addressing Alice Munro's talent, her understanding of the short story as a window to life, ever expanding, ever progressing, in search of life and its own essence. I highly recommend that you read it.--Maurice A. Lee, Director of the biennial International Conference on the Short Story in English

As Alice Munro's stories grew, and their plots enfolded, they rarely strayed from the southwest Ontario--"Munro Country"--of her birth. We accepted their authenticity, and suspected, but never confirmed, an autobiographical impulse. This meticulous and timely study lifts the folds and disentangles a distressed life from her consummate art.--Clark Blaise

Alice Munro is largely responsible for rescuing the short story from being overshadowed by the novel. The four critics here demonstrate how Munro moved from telling stories to creating complex explorations of reality as multilayers of memory and perspective.--Charles E. May, California State University, Long Beach

The pleasure in these essays is that they are less essays than passionate engagements with Munro's words, sentences and punctuation. They do not ask of the stories What but, rather, How. Each essay on what is terra incognita leaves us gazing out, silent, as it were, upon a peak in Darien. These are by far the best illuminations of Munro's work yet written.--John Metcalf, writer and fiction editor at Biblioasis Press

This book is a breakthrough in Munro critical scholarship. A collaboratively authored project by four Munro specialists, for the first time it foregrounds the Nobel Prize winner's four mid-career short story collections and her innovative reshaping of the genre. A revelatory reading of the multilayered narrative complexity which is Munro's distinctive signature.--Coral Ann Howells, University of Reading / University of London

About the Author

J.R. (Tim) Struthers taught full-time at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, from 1985 until 2022. He has edited some thirty volumes of theory, criticism, autobiography, short stories and poetry, including the companion volumes Alice Munro Country and Alice Munro Everlasting (2020).

Ailsa Cox is Emerita Professor of Short Fiction at Edge Hill University, UK. She is the author of Writing Short Stories (2005; 2nd ed., 2016) and Alice Munro (2004). Her own short fiction has appeared in journals including Katherine Mansfield Studies (2010, 2022).

Corinne Bigot is Maîtresse de Conférences of Postcolonial Literatures at Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, France. She is the author of Alice Munro, les silences de la nouvelle (2014) and, with Catherine Lanone, Sunlight and Shadow, Past and Present: Alice Munro's Dance of the Happy Shades (2014).

Catherine Sheldrick Ross was until her death Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. Her previous work included The Pleasures of Reading: A Booklover's Alphabet (2014) and Alice Munro: A Double Life (1992).