Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say

Kelly Corrigan is a writer, breast cancer survivor, wife, and mother of two teenage daughters. In this memoir, she organizes her reflections around phrases she considers essential to honest relationships, weaving together stories of family life, friendship, grief, faith, and self-reckoning.

The book opens 68 days after the death of Corrigan's father, whom the family called Greenie. On a chaotic morning, her daughters Georgia, 16, and Claire, 14, fought over a shirt while a robocall from a breast cancer fund reminded Corrigan of her own history with chemo, surgery, and radiation. Her mother phoned from Philadelphia wanting help transferring Greenie's frequent-flier miles; Corrigan longed to talk about grief, but her mother preferred privacy and practical tasks. Edward, Corrigan's even-keeled husband, left for work, and Corrigan sat alone in what she calls her "grieving chair." She smelled Greenie's pajama top and was transported to his deathbed. She recalls Will, a meditation instructor at Edward's office, who used the phrase "It's like this" to describe accepting life as it is. Corrigan tries to apply the phrase to her grief, her irritability, and the recent deaths of both Greenie and her friend Liz, who died of ovarian cancer at 46.

In the chapter on listening, Corrigan explores the power of the phrase "tell me more." On a drive to her 25th college reunion with Tracy Tuttle, her freshman-year roommate, Georgia called crying about a conflict with classmates. Tracy coached Corrigan in real time: Instead of advising, Corrigan should mirror Georgia's words and keep asking for more. Georgia calmed down and said "Exactly." Corrigan reflects that empathy, not problem-solving, is what her daughters need. The chapter shifts to the winter Greenie was dying. Corrigan flew to Philadelphia and spent 14 days at his side. In one of his final afternoons, Greenie shared his regrets: not naming a child after his college lacrosse coach, dominating his wedding with too many Corrigan family toasts, and not visiting Uncle Tommy enough when Tommy was dying of brain cancer. Using "tell me more," Corrigan drew him out until his agitation softened and he said he thought he was "good." They squeezed their four hands together.

In "I Don't Know," Corrigan wrestles with uncertainty. She introduces her friend MH, short for Mary Hope, who endured three miscarriages over several years before a doctor gave her permission to stop trying. MH and her husband Leon adopted a daughter, Eliza, and MH's approach to motherhood embraces not-knowing, allowing her child to reveal herself over time. Corrigan contrasts this with her own tendency to fix labels onto her daughters. She recounts her breast cancer diagnosis at 36 and the assumptions people imposed: that she was brave, genetically destined, or receiving a wake-up call. Her cousin Kathy, whose son Aaron was killed in a car accident, spent 10 years asking why before arriving at her answer: It happened because it can. Corrigan traces her evolving relationship with Catholicism. When both she and Greenie were diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer the same fall, her parents turned to God while she and Edward turned to Google. Greenie survived against expectations; her mother credited prayer, Tracy credited medicine, and the doctor shrugged. Corrigan settles into permanent uncertainty, telling her daughters she hopes for God but does not know.

The chapter "I Know" centers on Liz, whom Corrigan met in the late 1990s at a San Francisco club. Liz arrived with Andy, Edward's best friend. Their early friendship was thin, but when Liz discovered a tumor on her ovary, she fought cancer for almost seven years. About a year before Liz's death, their friendship transformed: As Liz's body slowed, she began sharing everything, and Corrigan earned that intimacy by sharing vulnerable details about caring for Greenie. At their last Thanksgiving together in 2015, Liz told Corrigan she wanted to die at home. Corrigan told Liz she would miss her. Two weeks later, on December 12, Liz died. After Liz's death, Corrigan volunteered at Camp Kesem, a nonprofit for children whose parents have or had cancer. She met Lucy, a 12-year-old whose father died of pancreatic cancer. When Corrigan mentioned her own losses, Lucy ran her hand across Corrigan's back and said "I know," not "I'm sorry."

In "No," Corrigan presents her mother, Mary Corrigan, as a master of boundary-setting who stopped attending events she found tiresome, drove separately to church, and maintained her own interests without apology. For her 70th birthday, Mary asked to be told about fixable problems but to be spared the unfixable ones. The chapter's central story involves Corrigan's desire for four children. After breast cancer, chemotherapy suspended her fertility, and at 38, a growth on one ovary led to an oophorectomy (surgical removal of the ovary), ending any possibility of natural pregnancy. She researched surrogacy and adoption and presented her plan to Edward on a flight. He said no: He was happy and did not want a new battle. Corrigan cried but did not fight him, recognizing that he too had been recovering from her illness. She comes to see his refusal as self-preservation, the thing that kept them together. In a brief companion chapter, Corrigan lists the things she will always say yes to, from more sleep to a Philly cheesesteak.

In "I Was Wrong," the family dog Hershey ate human waste from an unflushed toilet. Corrigan erupted in rage at Georgia, but Claire later admitted the waste was hers. Corrigan went to Georgia and said "I was wrong," a phrase she prefers to "I'm sorry" for its humility and precision. The chapter shifts to Corrigan's early twenties in Baltimore, where she lived near her paternal grandmother Cleta but visited only once in two years. When Cleta died, Greenie told Corrigan flatly that she should have visited more. She told him she was wrong and selfish; he replied, "Now you know," and their rift closed.

"Good Enough" traces Corrigan's troubled adolescence: She was fired from a pizza job, caught shoplifting, and suspended for drunkenness. Through it all, Greenie visited her room and told her she was "good enough." She introduces her friend Ariel Trost, a psychotherapist whose mentor assured her she was good enough before her first practicum serving African refugees. Ariel discovered that being the first person to truly listen to a client's full story was itself sufficient. Corrigan attends the bat mitzvah of Ariel's daughter Ruby, a Jewish coming-of-age ceremony, and sees it as a communal declaration of enoughness. Years later, Corrigan's mother watched her manage her household and declared, "You're nothing if not competent," an assessment Corrigan describes as transformative.

In the chapters on love, silence, and moving forward, Corrigan redefines "I love you" as a declaration made with full knowledge of another person's flaws. She describes her weekly volunteer work in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) at a local children's hospital, where a veteran staffer named Bette taught her that the babies need "close silence," not words. She recalls Liz describing a dream in which all the mothers who "had to leave early" sit watching their children's futures, allowed to intervene only once; Liz never needed her intervention, expressing her belief that she had given her children enough. In a letter to Liz, Corrigan updates her on Andy and the children. Andy created annual memorial binders, read Liz's journals, and wrote daily plans on a whiteboard. Corrigan includes a passage from Andy's eulogy comparing the family's journey to the Apollo 13 mission: The children are astronauts in a damaged ship, Liz is the moon whose gravity propels them homeward, and the community is Mission Control.

The book closes with Corrigan affirming the messy, ordinary reality of family life as "this is it." She traces her path from post-college adventure to the realization, during a nannying job in Australia, that parenthood was what mattered most. After a mediocre dinner and family squabbling, she heads upstairs and hears her daughter singing "All the Single Ladies" in the shower. The moment crystallizes the book's central idea: This ordinary life is happening right now, and she gets to be here for it.