How You Were Born

by Kate Cayley, foreword by Alayna Munce

tagged: short stories (single author), lesbian, family life

Description

This tenth-anniversary edition of Kate Cayley's award-winning collection includes three new stories.

A young mother intrudes into the life of an older woman, thinking she knows what's best. An academic becomes convinced that he is haunted by his double. Two children spy on their supposedly criminal neighbours. A man enables his cousin's predatory impulses out of loyalty, and a circus performer dreams of a perfect wedding. These characters fail despite their best intentions and continue on despite their failures.

The stories in How You Were Born, each more incisive and devastating than the last, examine the difficult business of love, loyalty, and memory. Sharing the bizarre and tragi-comic of life—whether in present-day Toronto or in small towns of the early 20th century—Cayley champions the importance of connections, even when missed or mislaid, and the possibility of redemption.

About the Authors

Kate Cayley

Alayna Munce

ALAYNA MUNCE is a writer, editor, and publisher. In 2019, Alayna was named publisher of Brick Books, Canada’s poetry-only press. Though her first love is poetry, she also writes and edits fiction. Her first novel, When I Was Young and In My Prime was nominated for the Trillium Book Award and appeared on the national bestseller list. She lives in the Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto in a bustling blended family of six.

Awards

Winner, Trillium Book Award
Short-listed, Governor General’s Literary Award

Editorial Reviews

“Cayley shows us, in How You Were Born, that the impulse to collect and then work through anxiety imaginatively is important and powerful.”—Cleaver Magazine

"A riveting collection that continually surprises with its effortless blend of the psychological, the domestic, and the surreal. Whether she’s exploring the lives of circus performers, over-imaginative children, or an elderly man convinced that his next-door neighbour is his doppelgänger, Cayley teases out unexpected insights, connections, dark secrets, and moments of transcendence.” —Trillium Book Award Jury Citation

“Cayley writes with such exactness even the mundane is lush, and the outlandish hyperreal... Masterful.” —Electric Literature

“Cayley’s collection is a series of tautly written, gripping tales full of emotional intelligence, especially when it comes to children’s relationships.” —NOW Magazine

“How You Were Born is an ideal literary companion. Slimish, perfectly packaged, each story its own realized vision.” —Pickle Me This

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