Runaway Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, and our BookBrowse Review of Runaway.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

"Alice Munro has a strong claim to being the best fiction writer now working in North America. Runaway is a marvel." –The New York Times Book Review

The introduction, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and author biography that follow are intended to enhance your group’s conversation about Alice Munro’s superb new collection, Runaway. In these eight tales, we find women of all ages and circumstances, their lives made palpable by the subtlety and empathy of this incomparable writer.


Reading Guide

"Runaway"
 
1. Why is Sylvia so fond of Carla? Is Sylvia right, given the circumstances, to suggest that Carla leave her husband and give her the means to do so?
   


2. When Carla tells her parents she wants a "more authentic" life, what does she mean by this [p. 33]? How much does Carla know about authenticity or about life?
   


3. What is Clark’s appeal for Carla? What darker suggestions does the story make about Clark’s character? It seems that Clark has wanted to get rid of Carla’s beloved pet goat: why? What resonance does Carla’s vision of the goat’s bones lying in a nearby field have for the reader’s understanding of her future?
   

"Chance"
 

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.