Rose and her stepmother Flo live in Hanratty -- across the bridge from the "good" part of town. Rose, alternately fascinated and appalled by the rude energy of the people around her, grows up nursing her hope of outgrowing her humble beginnings and plotting to escape to university. Rose makes her escape and thinks herself free. But Hanratty's question -- Who do you think you are? -- rings in Rose's ears during her days in Vancouver, mocks her attempts to make her marriage successful, and haunts her new career back East as an actress and interviewer. In these stories of Rose and Flo, Alice Munro explores the universal story of growing up -- Rose's struggle to accept herself tells the story of our lives.

Also published as The Beggar Maid.