How You Were Born, Kate Cayley
How You Were Born, Kate Cayley
List: $22.45 | Sale: $15.72
Club: $11.22

How You Were Born

Author: Kate Cayley, Alayna Munce

Narrator: Kate Cayley

Unabridged: 5 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Book*hug Press

Published: 03/12/2024

Categories: Fiction, Lgbtq+, Family Life


Synopsis

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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Krista on November 22, 2015

The night you were born I dreamed of a train that surged out of the dark, headlights blazing, furious with light. It bore down on the world, shrieking, a great and terrible movement. You stared, unblinking, and your eyes were fixed on the fading afterimage of wherever you were before we are. You......more

Goodreads review by Dana on March 16, 2024

I am a huge fan of short stories and really enjoyed this collection. I like being taken outside of my comfort zone and exploring something I may not usually read. That's the great thing about short stories, you never know what's around the corner in the next story. I highly recommend! My favourites w......more

Goodreads review by Andrea on August 12, 2015

"How You Were Born" beat out Margaret Atwood and Dionne Brand for the Trillium Award, and it's easy to see why. The stories here are varied, muscular, lyrical, and emotionally resonant. I read and loved Cayley's poetry collection, "When This World Comes to an End" last year, and both books showcase......more

Goodreads review by Nic on June 14, 2017

An exceptional collection of short stories that kept me interested and impressed despite being quite outside of what I would normally enjoy. It steers clear of the usual failings of short story collections (overlapping voices, interchangeable characters, repetitive stories) by being essentially unre......more

Goodreads review by Dju on April 22, 2018

J'ai lu la version traduite en français. J'ai été attirée à la bibliothèque par la beauté de ce livre, par sa belle couverture (éditions marchandes de feuilles) et le format de celui-ci. J’ai particulièrement aimé la nouvelle ¨poète aveugle¨, l'amour entre deux femmes. L'auteure réussis à nous faire......more