The only novel by bestselling author Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Catching frogs, scraping knees, singing songs to save England from Hitler – that was Del Jordan's childhood, and now she is impatiently searching for more. More than she can find in the encyclopedias her mother sells, or in the half-understood hints her best friend Naomi makes, or in the whispers of boys during Friday night dances. Just like the girls in the movies, she wants to start living the real life. In her only novel, Alice Munro focuses on the frustrations, embarrassments, joys, and confusions of youth, as well as the encounters with sex, death, violence, and birth that shape the lives of girls and women. "I am the perfect audience for her kind of quiet, simmering feminism" - Lena Dunham. "Outstanding" - Independent. "In Munro's work, nothing can be predicted. Emotions erupt. Prejudices crumble.".