A stunning debut collection of linked short stories exploring the promises and disappointments of modern life, edited by award-winning author Alexander MacLeod.

These are the stories of the people who used to live next-door.

The characters in Sue Murtagh's outstanding debut collection of linked short stories are at a crossroads. Middle-class, middling, they wrestle with the consequences of their decisions and powerful forces outside of their control. Whether it's a volatile housing market, the ever-present threat of illness, or the slow disintegration of a marriage, this community of neighbours finds themselves trapped between the idyllic promises of the North American dream and the stark realities of modern life.

Mice infest every home a woman has ever lived in, no matter the domestic trappings. A charity golf tournament is an exercise in futility for a pair of married insurance entrepreneurs. At a community pool, profound grief manifests as rage. A grandmother's stories of generational trauma mutate in the retelling. And a suburban wildfire causes a young person to question the idea of home and the values of her parents' generation.

Packing the punch of a novel, these thirteen deftly interwoven stories scrutinize the lives of everyday people with surgical precision, while finding connection and community in the unlikeliest of places. Edited by award-winning author Alexander MacLeod, We're Not Rich is a wryly observed and deeply-thoughtful collection, where nothing is quite as it should be, but everything feels true.

Sue Murtagh lives in Halifax. Her writing has appeared in The Nashwaak Review, Grain, carte blanche, the Humber Literary Review, and The New Quarterly. She won the Budge Wilson Short Story Prize in 2016. In 2020, she apprenticed with Alexander MacLeod through the WFNS Alistair MacLeod mentorship program. She then graduated with distinction in 2022 from the Humber School of Writers, working with Danila Botha. We're Not Rich is her first book.

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"Sue Murtagh's debut short story collection, We're Not Rich, is sensitive and brilliant. From her precise, carefully wrought descriptions to her note perfect inner monologue, Murtagh navigates complex and at times devastating subjects, from a mother losing her son (Saving Spiderman) to a fraught teenage friendship (Is This My Christine?) to a secret family history of Holocaust resistance (Train Stories, Abridged) Her stories often contain a great deal of dark wit and wry humour, from marriages that fall apart (Siesta gating adult dating (Patches) In fact, the whole collection is so sophisticated and assured, it's hard to believe that it's Murtagh's first. A wonderful read."

—Danila Botha, author of Things that Cause Inappropriate Happiness and For All the Men (and Some of the Women) I've Known

"Where does it go? Our money, our love, our youth, our trauma? And what are we supposed to do now? Like the rest of us, the characters in We're Not Rich are carried, and moved, by these timeless questions. This is seriously great writing, but don't worry: Murtagh is hilarious too. Furious and forgiving at the same time, this is one of the best collections we've seen in a long, long time."

—Alexander MacLeod, author of Animal Person

"We're Not Rich is a thrilling debut, shimmering with tension and truth. These are the stories we long for— note-perfect accounts of the ways we falter and fail and somehow, miraculously, endure."

—Alissa York, author of Far Cry

"The stories of Sue Murtagh are reminiscent of those by Raymond Carver or Denis Johnson—seemingly quotidian on the surface, but beneath those seemingly placid waters they roil, and seethe, and speak to us the hard truths that many of us would rather not confront."

—Craig Davidson, author of Cascade and The Saturday Night Ghost Club

"These stories, with their threads that travel from narrative to narrative, characters who occur and reoccur, relationships that change and evolve, satisfy with a novelistic scope, while the writing is tight and focused on the moments. Sue Murtagh writes tough storylines with confidence and ease, heart and heartbreak in equal measure. I loved this collection."

—Stephanie Domet, author of Fallsy Downsies

"We're Not Rich captures the subtle intricacies and explosive moments of disappointment, grief, love and love lost that make us human, all laced with brilliant humour and gorgeous revelation. Here's the quietly dying love of a couple married for years, as wildfires rage around their family home; a groping boss and a young office worker who roars up and fights back; a mother ambushed during a swim at a public pool by ungovernable grief for the loss of her child; all the big, too-human catastrophes coupled with the searing moments of sweet clarity that get us through. Murtagh is fleet and sure, every word exacting and right; her characters flit through rage and broken attachments and tenderness and insight— an astoundingly talented writer, a gripping and utterly beautiful collection of stories."

—Lisa Moore, author of This is How We Love