by Alice Munro
First published 1999
A nurse tends to a dying man while harboring dark suspicions about his past. A woman travels to Jakarta and confronts the gap between her expectations and reality. On Cortes Island, relationships shift in ways no one anticipates. These characters navigate love's unpredictable terrain, where passion leads them down roads they never planned to travel. A mother watches her children make choices that will define their futures. Family dynamics reveal themselves in moments of crisis and change. Dreams collide with memory as people try to make sense of their lives. Munro presents eight complete worlds where ordinary people face extraordinary emotional reckonings. The heart wants what it wants, often in ways that surprise even those who think they know themselves best.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, adult-fiction, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-driven, slice-of-life
Setting: Cortes Island, Jakarta
Period: 20th-century