Women and Children First

Elizabeth Strout’s Anything is Possible meets Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You in Alina Grabowski’s Women and Children First, a breathtaking literary debut that unwinds the private lives of ten women as they confront tragedy in a small Massachusetts town.

Nashquitten, MA, is a decaying coastal enclave that not even season can revive, full of locals who have run the town’s industries for generations. So, when a young woman dies at a house party, the circumstances around her death suspiciously unclear, the tight-knit community of Nashquitten is shaken. As a mother grieves her daughter, a teacher her student, a best friend her confidante, the events around this tragedy become a lightning rod: blame is cast, secrets are buried deeper. Some are left to pick up the pieces, while others turn their backs, and all the while, a truth about that dreadful night begins to emerge.

Told through the eyes of ten local women, Grabowski’s Women and Children First is an exquisite portrait of grief and a powerful reminder of life’s interconnectedness. Touching on womanhood, class, and sexuality, ambition, disappointment, and tragedy, this novel is a stunning rendering of love and loss, and a bracing lesson from a phenomenal new literary talent that no one walks this earth alone.