In her foreword to this selection of Nobel Prize–winner Alice Munro's latest short stories, novelist Jane Smiley writes, "underlying all of her work there is a political assertion--that the lives of girls and women, the lives of hired girls and men who work in foundries... are all equally complex and equally worthy of portrayal." Amid the litany of her accolades, there's no questioning Munro's place in the contemporary canon, but Family Furnishings emphasizes her important role championing the types of stories Smiley describes, in which Munro wields her prodigious talent to give voice to inner lives in conflict with their exteriors.
One of the most remarkable elements of this lengthy collection is the fact that it represents a mere fragment of Munro's complete works. The pieces she penned at the end of her career are knife-sharp, the result of years spent whittling her craft to its barest essence. In "Hateship, Friendship, Loveship, Courtship, Marriage," which hinges on a series of morally intricate choices, Munro refuses to pigeonhole her characters into simple archetypes. The lonely, lovelorn woman isn't powerless; the rich man who hired her isn't an evil cad. The characters are as flawed, empathetic and mysterious as any human.
As with a fine garment, the mark of these stories' excellence is their near-invisible seams, the effortless ways in which they reach their surprising and moving resolutions. When imagining how these near-perfect stories came into being, it might be tempting to say, with reverence, "Magic." --Linnie Greene, freelance writer