Book excerpt: Eight stunning stories from Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro, “a true master of the form” (Salman Rushdie). “Open Secrets is a book that dazzles with its faith in language and in life.”—The New York Times Book Review In these eight tales, Alice Munro reveals entire lives with a sureness that is nothing less than breathtaking, capturing those moments in which people shrug off old truths, old selves, and what they only thought was fate. In Open Secrets, Munro evokes the devastating power of old love suddenly rekindled. She tells of vanished schoolgirls and indentured frontier brides and an eccentric recluse who, in the course of one surpassingly odd dinner party, inadvertently lands herself a wealthy suitor from exotic Australia. And Munro shows us how one woman’s romantic tale of capture and escape in the high Balkans may end up inspiring another woman who is fleeing a husband and a lover in present-day Canada. The resulting volume resonates with sorrow, humor, and wisdom, and confirms Alice Munro’s reputation as one of the most gifted writers of our time.