The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose
"Whether Alice Munro'sThe Beggar Maidis a collection of stories or a new kind of novel I'm not quite sure, but whatever it is, it's wonderful. The psychological precision...is a delight, and the startling twists -- the unexpected leaps in time, the transformation of familiar characters -- they make the book what books ought to be, a little wild, a little mysterious." -- John GardnerIn this exhilarating series of interweaving stories, Alice Munro re-creates the evolving bond -- one that is both constricting and empowering -- between two women in the coupe of almost forty years. One is Flo, practical, suspicious of other people's airs, at times dismayingly vulgar. The other is Rose, Flo's stepdaughter, a clumsy, shy girl who somehow-in spite of Flo's ridicule and ghastly warnings -- leaves the small town she grew up in to achieve her own equivocal success in the larger world."The stories are absolutely wonderful-every word she writes is interesting." -- Alice Adams"The best stories of the year." --The NationPraise from fellow writers:“Her work felt revolutionary when I came to it, and it still does.” —Jhumpa Lahiri“She is one of the handful of writers, some living, most dead, whom I have in mind when I say that fiction is my religion.” —Jonthan Franzen“The authority she brings to the page is just lovely.” —Elizabeth Strout“She’s the most savage writer I’ve ever read, also the most tender, the most honest, the most perceptive.” —Jeffery Eugenides“Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can.”—Julian Barnes“She is a short-story writer who…reimagined what a story can do.” —Loorie Moore“There’s probably no one alive who’s better at the craft of the short story.” —Jim Shepard“A true master of the form.” —Salman Rushdie“A wonderful writer.” —Joyce Carol Oates