Women and Children First
A gripping literary puzzle that unwinds the private lives of ten women as they confront tragedy in a decaying town.
Nashquitten, Massachusetts, is a coastal enclave that not even tourist season can revive, full of locals who have run the town’s industries for generations. When a young woman dies at a house party, the circumstances around her death suspiciously unclear, the tight-knit community is shaken.
Told through the eyes of ten women, Alina Grabowski’s Women and Children First is an exquisite portrait of grief and a powerful reminder of life’s interconnectedness. Touching on womanhood, class, 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.
‘A striking debut from a brilliant new voice. Alina Grabowski perfectly inhabits her characters, shining a light on the multidimensionality of both grief and adolescence with great humor and insight.’ – Sarah Jessica Parker
‘Magnetic...The ennui of small-town life is perfectly captured in the slice-of-life vignettes, which coalesce into a riveting set of Rashomon-style retellings. Grabowski shows immense promise.’ – Publishers Weekly, starred review
‘Craftily constructed and deeply moving.’ – Booklist, starred review
Alina Grabowski’s work has appeared in Story, The Masters Review, Joyland, and Day One. She earned her MFA from Vanderbilt, and has received scholarships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and the Juniper Summer Writing Institute.
She was a 2019 Emerging Writer Fellow at Aspen Summer Words. She lives in Austin, Texas.
