Lives of Girls and Women

1974

by Alice Munro

Lives of Girls and Women is the only novel from the award-winning author Alice Munro, known for her remarkable storytelling in The Love of a Good Woman. This insightful and honest book is autobiographical in form but not in fact, chronicling a young girl's journey to adulthood in rural Ontario during the 1940s.

Del Jordan lives at the end of the Flats Road on her father's fox farm, where her companions include an eccentric bachelor family friend and her rough younger brother. As she begins spending more time in town, Del is surrounded by women: her mother, an agnostic and opinionated encyclopedia saleswoman; her mother's boarder, the lusty Fern Dogherty; and her best friend, Naomi, with whom she shares both the frustrations and joys of adolescence.

Through these unwitting mentors and her own encounters with sex, birth, and death, Del explores the dark and bright sides of womanhood. Throughout, she remains a wise, witty observer and recorder of truths in small-town life. The result is a powerful, moving, and humorous demonstration of Alice Munro's unparalleled awareness of the lives of girls and women.

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