“An exhilarating collection” (The New York Times Book Review) of ten blended stories from Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro “The rich texture of its narrative and the author’s graceful style make [The Beggar Maid] a considerable accomplishment.”—Joyce Carol Oates, Ms.
In this vibrant series of interweaving stories, Alice Munro recreates the evolving bond—one that is both constricting and empowering—between two women in the course 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.
FINALIST
| 1980 Booker Prize
“Whether Alice Munro’s The Beggar Maid is 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 Gardner
“The stories are absolutely wonderful-every word she writes is interesting.”—Alice Adams
“An exhilarating collection” (The New York Times Book Review) of ten blended stories from Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro “The rich texture of its narrative and the author’s graceful style make [The Beggar Maid] a considerable accomplishment.”—Joyce Carol Oates, Ms.
In this vibrant series of interweaving stories, Alice Munro recreates the evolving bond—one that is both constricting and empowering—between two women in the course 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.
Awards
FINALIST
| 1980 Booker Prize
Praise
“Whether Alice Munro’s The Beggar Maid is 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 Gardner
“The stories are absolutely wonderful-every word she writes is interesting.”—Alice Adams
