How You Were Born

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.

KATE CAYLEY is the author of several books, including the poetry book, Lent, and the short story collection, How You Were Born, winner of the Trillium Book Award and shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. She has won the O. Henry Short Story Prize, the Mitchell Prize for Faith and Poetry, and the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction. She has been a finalist for the K. M. Hunter Award, the Carter V. Cooper Short Story Prize, and the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and been longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize and CBC Books Prizes in both poetry and fiction. Cayley lives in Toronto with her wife and their three children.

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.

ISBN: 9781771668705
Format: Paperback
Pages: 232
Publisher: Book*hug Press
Published: March 12, 2024

"How You Were Born is a stunning collection. These stories are unsettling in the best possible way: tender and pitiless, they take the reader by the hand, by the chin, sometimes even by the throat. Look, they say, this is what it is to be human. This is how strange, how unspeakably beautiful, it can be.” —Alissa York, author of Far Cry"How You Were Born is a stunning collection. These stories are unsettling in the best possible way: tender and pitiless, they take the reader by the hand, by the chin, sometimes even by the throat. Look, they say, this is what it is to be human. This is how strange, how unspeakably beautiful, it can be.” —Alissa York, author of Far Cry“Cayley probes the circus that is the human heart and proves it to be wild and eccentric, big, and sometimes aching, often bursting with wisdom. Every scene is vivid; every character flesh and blood present. Every story in How You Were Born is delicately crafted, full of drama, epiphany, and strong emotion. Cayley’s prose flashes with insight—transparent and true.” —Lisa Moore

“Cayley probes the circus that is the human heart and proves it to be wild and eccentric, big, and sometimes aching, often bursting with wisdom. Every scene is vivid; every character flesh and blood present. Every story in How You Were Born is delicately crafted, full of drama, epiphany, and strong emotion. Cayley’s prose flashes with insight—transparent and true.” —Lisa Moore

"Ariveting 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"Ariveting 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 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

“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

“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