Blink Book Review: “The Irish Goodbye” by Beth Ann Fennelly

By Reba Hull Campbell

My summer reading challenge continues with another book about writing. But this one doesn’t include a single tip, hint or rule to make my writing better.

What “The Irish Goodbye” by Beth Ann Fennelly does include is 127 pages of 40+ short essays that the author describes as “micro-memoirs.”

Each essay taught me by example about both the form and structure of this writing style that I love so much, but have never found the perfect way to describe it. Micro-memoir does the trick.

They are short. They are personal. They connect the writer’s experiences to the reader with emotion, reflections and humor.

What drew me in

I was recently in bookstore mecca – otherwise known as Square Books in Oxford, MS – during a quick overnight trip. The thoughtful friend who fetched me from the Memphis airport knows me well and suggested I wander the bookstore while she did some errands. I knew I was limited to a single purchase since I was constrained by the space in my small overnight knapsack.

Some of my favorite books have been random purchases at Square Books (see list below). I was first drawn to this book simply because of its title. The “Irish goodbye” is my husband’s favorite party trick to slip out of a gathering without a farewell (of course, as I later read the essay with this title, the saying takes on a whole different meaning).

The clean crisp cover photo also pleased my eye while I browsed for my one purchase. The description on the inside dust cover cemented my decision.

Then imagine my surprise when I saw this very book on my friend’s coffee table that evening. Turns out the author lives in Oxford (and she teaches at Ole Miss and is a former poet laureate of Mississippi).

Three times through

I’ve now read this collection of these micro-memoirs three times.

My first pass was a “get to know you” date that kept me company during a much-rain-delayed flight home the next day.

My second pass was a “turn-down-pages-and-scribble-in-the-margins” experience highlighting turns of words, truisms, and stories that delight and surprise.

My third pass was reading the book as a primer on writing. During my first two passes of the book, I realized Fennelly’s micro-memoir style is exactly what I’ve been writing for many years, and now I have finally landed on an apt descriptor and a role model of a book.

Some of the essays bang you over the head while others take you on a leisurely walk through memories and experiences.

Many of the essays involve common themes such as the untimely death of the author’s sister, years-long marriages, ailing parents and lifelong friendships. Each essay can stand alone as an individual story. At the same time, they all weave together into a larger experience.

I devoured and re-devoured these 40+ micro-memoirs ranging in length from five words on a single page to 16 fully-paragraphed pages.

Birthday (page 26) is five words: “Even  my earlobes look old.”

The longest, “The Stories We Tell About The Stories We Tell” (page 5), recounts the author’s expat adventure at 21 in a small town on the Polish-Czech border and her return 21 years later during a weekend break from a teaching gig.

My favorites

While I loved each essay, my two favorites are “The Roomies” (page 91) and “Dear Viewer of My Naked Body” (page 113).

In “The Roomies,” the author writes of the decades-long friendship with her four Notre Dame roommates who are spread around the country. She tells sweet, touching stories honoring each of their gifts and griefs. She says their lives enlarge her. I get that!

I connected so with her lovely stories of how they’ve continued to show up for each other year after year. I saw my Mississippi “Lucky Duck” friend group of almost 40 years reflected in her words about belly laughs, shared songs, numbing grief, friends who become family, aches of the heart and body, and the beauty of aging.

My other favorite is the last entry of the collection, ”Dear Viewer of My Naked Body,” about the author’s experience as a (one-time-only) nude model. Yes, she lives in small-town Oxford, MS. Yrd, this really happened. And, yes, I’d even heard of these paintings from friends who live in Oxford.

To avoid a spoiler alert, I will only say this essay is so many things at once – vulnerable, insightful, revealing (pun intended), human, and downright hilarious.

Two of the many best lines in this essay are

“Sometimes, it’s so lovely to be irrelevant.” (I first read this as “irreverent” 🙂

and

“I happen to have an imperfect body. It’s right here, under my dress.”

 

Below are Blink Book Reviews of favorites I’ve bought at Square Books over the years. This theme of choosing random books by their covers at Square Books tells me they know a thing or two about merchandising 🙂

Women Holding Things by Maria Kalman

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

Confessions of a Southern Beauty Queen by Julie Hines Mabus

In 2022, Reba Campbell set out to get off the screens and back to books for the summer. Her accountability was writing short Blink Book Reviews (so short you can read them in a blink). Now it’s an annual summer thing here. Join Reba’s Blink Book Review Facebook group to follow along. Reba is president of Columbia, SC-based The Medway Group and can be reached at [email protected].