Tell Me Who We Were: Stories

A dazzling collection of linked short stories about

womanhood, motherhood, marriage and transformation, in the vein of such

 “These are stories of magical lyricism, contemporary

in their exploration of the obsessions of girls and young women, mythic in

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.