Tell Me Who We Were

September 2, 2019
McQuade’s masterful debut, a collection of linked stories, centers on six adolescents: Romy, Evie, Claire, Nell, Grace, and Lillith, who, in the opening story, bond over a tragedy during their first year at an all-girls boarding school. The seven intricate stories that follow delve into who these girls become at different points in their lives, or showcase an aspect of their identity through the eyes of someone close to them. In “A Myth of Satellites,” a new father looks back with regret on his teen-aged summer crush on Romy. “Wedge of Swans” reveals 29-year-old Evie’s ambivalence about having a child after having a miscarriage. The bizarre emotional and physical journey the newly separated Claire takes with her French-speaking, one-year-old baby is outlined in “Helen in Texarkana.” In the fantastical final story, “In The Hollow,” Lillith’s widower husband is convinced his wife has returned to him as a tree in their backyard. The author plumbs the depths of each character’s soul—how in the trajectory of growing older these women can or cannot connect with others as they deal with loss, infertility, or heartbreak. This exceptional debut reveals the extraordinary and mysterious underpinnings of ordinary lives whose presence long linger after the reader turns the final page.

May 1, 2019
Linked short stories follow six women?Lilith, Romy, Evie, Claire, Nelly, and Grace?from their formative teen years through their old age in McQuade's debut. The collection begins with the mysterious drowning of Mr. Arcilla, a teacher whom everyone has a crush on. This event propels the six young women in directions previously unimagined for the smart, privileged girls of their upper-crust boarding school. The following stories catch up with the older women in various stages of their lives and see them navigate the pressures to have children, the unexpected dissolution of a marriage, a battle with cancer, and the influence of men who come in and out of the picture throughout these events. McQuade uses natural imagery (especially birds and trees) and an infusion of strangeness and wonder that verges on the supernatural to connect these stories, which are also linked thematically. Piecing together these connections demands close reading?and rewards it, with details to savor. Short-story fans should be on the lookout for McQuade, whose style nestles somewhere between Elizabeth Strout's and Helen Oyeyemi's.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)