Dance of the Happy Shades: And Other Stories [Paperback]

Alice Munro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 1998

In these fifteen short stories--her eighth collection of short stories in a long and distinguished career--Alice Munro conjures ordinary lives with an extraordinary vision, displaying the remarkable talent for which she is now widely celebrated. Set on farms, by river marshes, in the lonely towns and new suburbs of western Ontario, these tales are luminous acts of attention to those vivid moments when revelation emerges from the layers of experience that lie behind even the most everyday events and lives.

"Virtuosity, elemental command, incisive like a diamond, remarkable: all these descriptions fit Alice Munro."--Christian Science Monitor

"How does one know when one is in the grip of art--of a major talent?....It is art that speaks from the pages of Alice Munro's stories."--Wall Street Journal

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

In these fifteen short stories--her eighth collection of short stories in a long and distinguished career--Alice Munro conjures ordinary lives with an extraordinary vision, displaying the remarkable talent for which she is now widely celebrated. Set on farms, by river marshes, in the lonely towns and new suburbs of western Ontario, these tales are luminous acts of attention to those vivid moments when revelation emerges from the layers of experience that lie behind even the most everyday events and lives.

"Virtuosity, elemental command, incisive like a diamond, remarkable: all these descriptions fit Alice Munro."--Christian Science Monitor

"How does one know when one is in the grip of art--of a major talent?....It is art that speaks from the pages of Alice Munro's stories."--Wall Street Journal

About the Author

Alice Munro grew up in Wingham, Ontario, and attended the University of Western Ontario. She has published eleven new collections of stories-Dance of the Happy Shades; Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You; The Beggar Maid; The Moons of Jupiter; The Progress of Love; Friend of My Youth; Open Secrets; The Love of a Good Woman; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage; Runaway; and a volume of Selected Stories-as well as a novel, Lives of Girls and Women. During her distinguished career she has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the Man Booker International Prize, three of Canada's Governor General's Literary Awards and two of its Giller Prizes, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Literary Award, England's W. H. Smith Book Award, the United States' National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Edward MacDowell Medal in literature. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, and other publications, and her collections have been translated into thirteen languages.Alice Munro divides her time between Clinton, Ontario, near Lake Huron, and Comox, British Columbia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Contemporaries ed edition (August 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067978151X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679781516
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #623,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alice Munro grew up in Wingham, Ontario, and attended the University of Western Ontario. She has published eleven previous books.During her distinguished career she has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the W.H. Smith Prize, the National Book Circle Critics Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Lannan Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and the Rea Award for the Short Story. In Canada, she has won the Governor General's Award, the Giller Prize, the Trillium Book Award, and the Libris Award.Alice Munro and her husband divide their time between Clinton, Ontario, and Comox, British Columbia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intimate and Touching, January 25, 2001

By 

Warrick Wynne "surfer, writer, reader" (Melbourne, VICTORIA AUSTRALIA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dance of the Happy Shades: And Other Stories (Paperback)

I hadnt read much Alice Munro before but I was very impressed with this collection of stories. There's a wonderful understatement about the entire collection, but each story resonates with its own life and people. I loved the melancholy and moody landscapes, the other-worlds of women and children mainly on farms and villages.

I think good stories create their own unique life; after all, why else would we care about characters who we meet and get to know so briefly? But we DO care about the characters; somehow they matter and though nothing is resolved sometimes, somehow everything has changed. The ordinary transformed.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You're in Luck!, October 22, 2006

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Dance of the Happy Shades: And Other Stories (Paperback)

If you haven't read Alice Munro before, you're in luck! you have some ten volumes of the best writing in English to select from! This collection includes some of Munro's earliest stories, at least as early as 1968, and one of her best known, "The Red Dress". It's a good starting place. If you've already read Munro's later story-suites, such as Runaway, then you'll be intrigued to find a less distinctive but equally crafty word-artist in Happy Shades. The stories in this collection are less interpenetrating, less like a novel in the form of a suite, than in other collections, but that's not a flaw, just a difference. One story (I won't declare which) ranks in my mind as a classic equal to any in English. If a short-story writer is ever to win the Nobel Prize, in my opinion it should be Alice Munro.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unabashed joy for an unabashed fan!, March 4, 2007

By 

Steven W. Mccornack - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dance of the Happy Shades: And Other Stories (Paperback)

If I could write a letter to Ms Munro, it would simply say...thank you for sharing your gift, and then probably, quit reading your fan mail and write some more short stories! Munro's gift is to make the simplest tale accessible to every reader, and whatever twists and turns she may take you on, your brain in sheer delight will exclaim..."of course!" She is capable of making the most isolated 1930's farm come alive to modern urban condo dwellers. Like a Rosetta stone of feeling and emotion, she allows the readers to inhabit the characters fully, regardless of gender or personality or circumstance. This collection is further evidence and testament to that gift, and of that genius. Write on, Ms Munro, write on!