Munro has acknowledged that the eight stories collected in Open Secrets are "riskier" than much of her earlier fiction. The tight structure of "The Albanian Virgin" produces a richly allusive and multilayered plot which should prove conducive to compulsive rereading and energetic discussion. It is a structure that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carol Shields has described as "two stories caught on a single thread, each touching and turning against the other, each shedding its share of light." An interesting question to pursue is whether readers agree with Munro's assertion of the probability (as opposed to the possibility) of alternate realities existing alongside (not above or below) the reality that each of us lives. Moreover, "The Albanian Virgin" is collected in Open Secrets, a book that was recommended as one of the Best Books of 1994 by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.

1. One reviewer of...