The Love of a Good Woman

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These eight captivating stories explore the lengths people will go for love and the unexpected paths their passions lead them down. An old landlady in Vancouver unnerves a newlywed with her prim advice about marriage and a china cabinet that must be washed monthly, revealing her own youthful crime of passion. A young mother, overwhelmed by the thrill of her secret life, abandons her children to be with her lover in “The Children Stay.” A gruff country doctor in the 1960s is discovered by his daughter to be aiding desperate women, his “special patients.” An impulsive young woman meets a visiting Indian student and conceives on a train due to the unavailability of condoms at a Calgary station. An Ontario farm wife’s affair incites her husband to commit murder, with its later discovery serving as leverage for a new marriage. The stories candidly address marriage's imperfections, emotional complexities, and love's impermanence: “Not that that was the end. For we did make up. But we didn’t forgive each other.” Shared memories become a minefield, revealing how time alters families, lovers, and friends who harbor intimate secrets about “the prostration of love.” Munro’s humor enriches these narratives, making the characters relatable and sometimes uncomfortably familiar. A quote encapsulates the delightful surprises within: “Did you ever think that people’s lives could be like that and end up like this? Well, they can.”