A dazzling collection of linked short stories about womanhood, motherhood, marriage and transformation, in the vein of such contemporary powerhouses as Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link and Samantha Hunt.

It begins with a drowning.

One day, Mr. Arcilla, the romance-language teacher at Briarfield, an all-girls boarding school, is found dead at the bottom of Reed Pond. Young and handsome, the object of much fantasy and fascination, he was adored by his students. For Lilith and Romy, Evie and Claire, and Nellie and Grace, he was their first love, and their first true loss.

In this extraordinary collection, Kate McQuade explores the ripple effect of one transformative moment on six lives, witnessed at a different point in each girl’s future. Throughout these stories, these bright, imaginative and ambitious girls mature into women, lose touch and call in favors, achieve success and endure betrayal, marry and divorce, have children and struggle with infertility, abandon husbands and remain loyal to the end.

Lyrical, intimate and incisive, TELL ME WHO WE WERE explores the inner worlds of girls and women, the relationships we cherish and betray, and the transformations we undergo in the simple act of living.

Tell Me Who We Were: Stories
by Kate McQuade

• Publication Date: July 14, 2020
• Genres: Fiction, Short Stories
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
• ISBN-10: 0062869809
• ISBN-13: 9780062869807