Short Story Wednesday: "Runaway" by Alice Munro

Last night I spent the evening reading several short stories by Lorrie Moore. But this morning I heard that Alice Munro had died at 92, and I decided to read one of Munro's stories for my post this week instead. Luckily, I have several of her books of short stories, and the one I decided on was Runaway, published in 2004. I read the title story.

All of the stories in this collection are longer stories, usually between 35 to 45 pages in length.

In "Runaway," Carla and Clark run a stable for boarding horses; they also provide trail rides to campers nearby and riding lessons for children. They live in a mobile home on their land. One morning, Carla sees their nearest neighbor, Sylvia Jamieson, driving home from a trip to Greece. Carla is afraid of what will happen when Clark discovers that Sylvia is home. What happens after that is surprising and unexpected. The story is an interesting look at marriages and relationships.

I liked the story, but it was a little unsettling.

The next three stories in this book are about a single character, Juliet. I hope to read them soon.

I don't have a lot of experience with Alice Munro's stories, but overall, I have been impressed with those that I have read. She is a Canadian author, and the settings of her stories are usually in Canada, which is an added attraction for me. Last year I read a collection of her stories published in 2012, Dear Life. My comments on those stories are here and here. 

Reading Summary for April 2024

 

I read six novels this month, and I was pleased with the variety. I am working on increasing the number of eBooks I read. This month I read one (the Bill Crider book) , and one of the books I am currently reading is also an eBook, so I have read a total of three this year, up from one in all of 2023.

I have been putting together a list for 20 Books of Summer at 746 Books, and I am looking forward to reading those books. 

General Fiction

The Jane Austen Book Club (2004) by Karen Joy Fowler

Five women and one man form a book club to discuss Jane Austen's novels, one per month. Their ages range from 30 to nearly 70. I liked this book a lot, but the narrative style was challenging. See my review.

Fiction, Western

The Sisters Brothers (2011) by Patrick deWitt

This novel is a western, a genre that I have little familiarity with. Eli and Charlie Sisters work for the Commodore. Their current assignment is to find Hermann Kermit Warm and kill him. Charlie is the older brother and runs the show. Eli narrates the story; he doesn't enjoy killing and would be just as happy to find another way to live, but he feels loyal to Charlie. The story is set in the West when it was lawless, and there are many interesting historical facts to be learned, but I didn't enjoy the story of a life of crime until it was close to over. It is well-written and Eli is a great character. I am glad I read it through to the end, but it just wasn't the book for me.

Science Fiction

The Humans (2013) by Matt Haig

This is a science fiction novel about an alien who comes to earth, and takes over the body of a mathematician, Andrew Martin. However, for me this was more like reading a philosophy book or a self help book. I loved it. See my review.

Crime Fiction

The Found Him Dead (1937) by Georgette Heyer

They Found Him Dead is a very bland title for an entertaining mystery novel set in a country house. Members of the Kane family are dying, and the police are not sure who is causing the deaths or why. See my review.

Winning Can Be Murder (1996) by Bill Crider

Sheriff Dan Rhodes of Blacklin County, Texas has fond memories of playing football for the local high school team in his youth. Like almost everyone else in Blacklin County, he is enthusiastic about the home football team's chances to go to the state finals this year. The football theme did not interest me as much as the earlier books I have read in this series, but a Dan Rhodes mystery by Bill Crider is always an entertaining and fun read, with lovable main characters and a lot of eccentric secondary characters. This is the 8th book in a 25 book series.

The Mistress of Alderley (2000) by Robert Barnard

A successful actress has been set up in a country house by her lover; he visits only on weekends and she thinks she has the perfect life. I love Barnard's style of writing; his books often have unusual or unexpected endings. This one was more straightforward as far as the mystery goes but the mystery had me interested from beginning to end. Another bonus for me was that the policemen in this book were Charlie Peace and his boss, Mike Oddie, from the author's Charlie Peace series. 

Just Finished

I finished reading The Warden by Anthony Trollope for the Classics Club Spin and I will be reviewing it soonish, so I won't say too much about it right now. It was the first book I have read by Trollope, and a very good read, once I got used to the style of writing.

Currently reading

I am reading A Rip Through Time by Kelley Armstrong on my Kindle Scribe, which I purchased in February. As you can probably tell from the title, it is a time travel book. With the purchase of the Scribe I got a three-month free trial of Kindle Unlimited. That gave me access to A Rip Through Time, and I wanted to take advantage of the subscription before it ran out. For the first few chapters, I was unsure how much I would enjoy this book, but I am about 50% through it right now and it is getting better and better.

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken in early May in our back yard.  We have been working on clearing out weeds in the back. There is still lots of work to be done but soon we will be able to buy some new plants for pots. 

The photos were taken and processed by my husband. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

The Jane Austen Book Club: Karen Joy Taylor

 

I liked this book a lot when I was reading it, but now, less than a month later, I can't remember much about the book. What does that say? In some ways I see it as normal, the story of a book falls away after time, especially if you read a lot of fiction. Also, I think it would be good for a reread, and not remembering much is a plus. Today, while writing this review, I did reread one chapter and I enjoyed rereading it.

The six people in the book club are Jocelyn and Sylvia, both in their early 50s; Allegra, Sylvia's daughter, 30 years old; Prudie, a teacher, 28 years old; Bernadette, the oldest member at 67; and Grigg, the only male, in his forties. Jocelyn is the one who set up the book club and invited members. Everyone in the group knows the others except for Grigg, and the others wonder why Jocelyn included a male and where she met him.

The story covers March through August in one year, one book club meeting for each Austen book, and has an epilogue in November. All of the book club members are fans of Austen's books, except for Grigg who is reading them for the first time. 

My Thoughts...

Overall, I enjoyed this book very much; it was a good read, and kept me entertained. But I did have some very minor criticisms. One thing that sometimes took me out of the story was the narration, which seemed to be an amalgamation of the book club group. It wasn't entirely negative, just jolting at times. After finishing the book, I looked this up and it is described as first person plural point of view. The entire book was not in that point of view, only portions of each chapter.

The book was less about the Austen books than I would have liked, but I enjoyed the individual stories about the members of the book club. And it did make me want to reread the Austen novels. I last read Sense and Sensibility in 2022, and the other five novels in 2017.

I was surprised by the ratings for this book on Goodreads. There are nearly 70,000 ratings, and over 5,000 reviews. But there are more 3 star ratings than any other rating and a good number of 1 stars, 2 stars, and DNFs. My rating would be 4.5. I especially liked that the writing style was different and how the back stories were worked into the story gradually. 

The book has a short section at the back summarizing all the Jane Austen novel, plus several pages of quotations about Austen and her books from various sources. I found both of these useful and interesting.

I am eager to explore more books by this author. 

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Publisher:  A Marian Wood Book, Putnam, 2004.
Length:      288 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Setting:      Davis, California
Genre:       Fiction
Source:      I purchased my copy in 2023.