"Runaway" is a potent mix of haunting characters and brilliant writing by short story master Alice Munro. The result is a collection of eight pieces that are edgy, disturbing and full of subtle tricks.
The women of "Runaway" somehow never quite seem to escape, or find what they are looking for, which suspends them in a hopeless swirl of everyday life. Munro fills this book with mood changes that kindle real emotion. They evoke the works of Anton Chekhov and Eudora Welty, but belong to one of today's most talented short story writers.
The stories hold back as much as possible and are expertly metered. But the resolutions are often unsightly revelations about humanity, which is one of the reasons they are so good. If by a lesser writer, they would be called cliffhangers or suspenseful, but this is something entirely different. These stories penetrate.
"Runaway," the title story, concerns Carla, a woman with a menacing husband, and her friendship with Sylvia, a writer's widow. It's probably the most compelling story in a book full of masterful tales (except "Tricks," which falls short due to its ending that seems a bit contrived).
In "Runaway," Munro sets up the circumstances - a rainy summer, a clumsy relationship between two women, money troubles and a menacing husband. Munro builds the story slowly, detail by detail, and then provides an original ending that steals your breath.
Three stories revolve around a woman named Juliet at various stages of her life, which is irrevocably changed because of the actions of a stranger sitting next to her on a train in the initial story.
Each of the Juliet stories is heartbreaking in its own right, but you can't help but root for Juliet as she stumbles through the stages of her life and her encounters with others.
"When Juliet said, 'Oh, I'm sorry' - speaking about the accident and feeling that she had been rude to pry, and that it was now hypocritical of her to commiserate - Irene said, 'Yeah. Right in time for my twenty-first birthday,' as if misfortunes were something to accumulate, like charms on a bracelet."
In "Powers," the last story, a woman stands idly by as another woman is tragically exploited.
In one of the most disturbing pieces, "Trespasses," a young girl named Lauren is befriended by Delphine, a woman with a secret that concerns Lauren. Munro hits upon the uneasiness that saturates "Runaway" as well as the idiosyncrasies that all people possess in this story:
"She gave Lauren her cup, and settled herself carefully at the head of the bed, the pillow at her back, her stockinged feet on the exposed sheet. Lauren had a particular feeling of disgust about feet in nylon stockings. Not about bare feet, or feet in socks, or feet in shoes, or feet in nylons covered up in shoes, just about feet in nylons out in the open, particularly touching any other cloth. This was just a private queer feeling - like the feeling she had about mushrooms, or cereal slopping around in milk."
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