{"product_id":"the-irish-goodbye-micro-memoirs-9781324117407","title":"The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat can we learn from an ordinary life observed with extraordinary skill? In \u003cem\u003eThe Irish Goodbye\u003c\/em\u003e, Beth Ann Fennelly writes of the small moments that shape a life, whether moving or perplexing or troubling or gladdening, in the process dignifying the diminutive through the act of attention. Fennelly explores her roles as a friend, wife, mother, and daughter, documenting a brush with an old flame or the devastating death of her sister in crystalline, precise sentences.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe longer essays concern Fennelly's relationships--with a beloved mother-in-law, a decades-long friendship between five former college roommates, an artist who paints a series of nude portraits in Fennelly's town, for which she poses. Interspersed between these longer memoirs are sections of flash nonfiction, a form Fennelly innovated in the genre-defying \u003cem\u003eHeating \u0026amp; Cooling\u003c\/em\u003e. With dazzling verve and wit, they capture the interstitial interactions--encounters with strangers, quirky observations, unexpected flights of fancy--that make up a richly lived life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Irish Goodbye\u003c\/em\u003e offers a rare pleasure: intimacy. With emotional clarity and nimble prose, Fennelly invites readers to share her affirming worldview--one in which even our smallest interactions are rife with possibility.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFennelly, Beth Ann:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003eBeth Ann Fennelly\u003c\/strong\u003e, poet laureate of Mississippi from 2016 to 2021, is the author of six books, most recently, \u003cem\u003eHeating \u0026amp; Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs\u003c\/em\u003e. She lives with her husband and their three children in Oxford, Mississippi.","brand":"W. W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52039830012178,"sku":"9781324117407","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_399d1636-44c4-4397-bbc9-5b8752ba70cd.jpg?v=1771416777","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-irish-goodbye-micro-memoirs-9781324117407","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}