The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose

Absolutely mesmerizing. I ended up not being able to read it before bed because it kept me up with a dark and anxious distaste for life. On the bright side, it makes one thankful when you compare yourself to the characters in the book, who are well developed and engaging, although hopeless. I reserved reading it to a brightly lit sunbeam. The book is beautiful and poetic however, and not in any pretentious way, which is refreshing. This is my first Alice Munro book and it surely won't be the last.

I don't even LIKE short stories. I always turn the last page over, and go, `Huh? Where's the rest of it?' But I make an exception for some authors, and Alice Munro is one of them. The Beggar Maid is a collection of stories that verges on some vague new definition of The Novel. It's full of unexpected time leaps in time and even more unexpected transformations of the constant characters. It's all a bit mysterious, confusing, suggestive - and altogether exhilarating. Munro weaves, picks apart, reweaves, then interweaves these stories about two women over a span of 40 years. They are prudish and suspicious Flo, and Rose, her stepdaughter, an awkward pathetic creature who somehow pulls herself out of her stultifying home town and embarks on her own life out in the big bad world.

Alice Munro's "The Beggar Maid" is probably the best collection of short stories I've evr read, though their interconnected nature makes it seem like you're reading a novel. In either case, it shows the trademark of all good literature: it touches you, deeply.Alice Munro may very well be the best short story writer alive today. Comparisons to Chekhov are not far-fetched. The title story, "Royal Beatings," and several others are masterpieces of the form. Munro's writing shows a wisdom and a psychological depth possessed only by the most accomplished artists and students of human nature. Not to mention her prose: spell-binding (I would read the Yellow Pages front to back if Ms. Munro penned them).

Yes, this may not mean much coming from a twelve year old, but Ms Munro, I thought your book was absolutely brilliant. The only thing that worried me was that air of sour mystery, the anticipation of disappointed expectations, a slight shivering of dread as if no matter how well we obey our parents, listen to our teachers, toe whatever invisible line has been drawn for us in the sand, we will in all likelihood end up alone, eating chili out of cans and opening up some tuna for the cats. But if we can have all that, our health, and a light to read your stories by, I guess it won't be all that bad.:)

I've read this book countless times, and will continue to read it again and again. Two stories in the collection, "Simon's Luck," and "The Beggar Maid," are two of my favorite stories ever written. I read these stories, and others by Alice Munro, whenever I feel heartbroken, at a loss, and full of grief...and they never fail to soothe me, to allow me to see the world in new ways.