Alice Munro: Dance of the Happy Shades

I got so much out of reading and reviewing over time each story in Munro’s newest collection, Dear Life (see here), that I’ve decided to go back to the beginning and do the same with her first collection of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), some of which will be very familiar as similar events and themes came out in Munro’s “finale” to Dear Life, those four “autobiographical” stories that concluded that collection.

This will be the anchor post, an index with links to my reviews of each story in this collection, which will be popping up here over the coming weeks and months. When all is said and done, I will update the bottom of this post to give some thoughts on the collection as a whole.

Dance of the Happy Shades contains fifteen stories:

• Walker Brothers Cowboy (reviewed February 1, 2013)
• The Shining Houses (reviewed February 7, 2013)
• Images (reviewed February 13, 2013)
• Thanks for the Ride (reviewed February 20, 2013)
• The Office (reviewed March 7, 2013)
• An Ounce of Cure (reviewed March 12, 2013)
• The Time of Death (reviewed March 15, 2013)
• Day of the Butterfly (reviewed March 19, 2013)
• Boys and Girls (reviewed March 22, 2013)
• Postcard (reviewed March 26, 2013)
• Red Dress — 1946 (reviewed March 28, 2013)
• Sunday Afternoon (reviewed April 2, 2013)
• A Trip to the Coast (reviewed April 4, 2013)
• The Peace of Utrecht (reviewed April 10, 2013)
• Dance of the Happy Shades (reviewed April 11, 2013)