Book Club: Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett

Uprooted by circumstance from city to deep countryside, a woman lives in temporary limbo, visited by memories of all she’s left behind. The most insistent are those of Xavier, whom she still loves but no longer desires, a displacement he has been unable to accept. An unexpected letter from an old acquaintance brings back a torrent of others she’s loved or wanted. Each has been a match and a mismatch, a liberation and a threat to her very sense of self. The ephemera left by their passage –a spilled coffee, an unwanted bouquet, a mind-blowing kiss—make up a cabinet of curiosity she inventories, trying to divine the essence of intimacy. What does it mean to connect with another person? How do we let them go? In this tour de force of fiction, the inventive Claire-Louise Bennett explores the mystery of how people come into and go out of our lives, leaving us forever in their grasp.

* This is a monthly meet up to discuss a great read, along with drinks & good company.
*Open to all | Registration required | Bar open


ABOUT The Author

claire-louise Bennett grew up in Wiltshire and studied literature and drama before moving to Ireland where she worked in and studied theatre for several years. In 2013 she was awarded the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize and her debut book, Pond, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2016. Claire-Louise's fiction and essays have appeared in a number of publications including The White Review, Stinging Fly, gorse, Harper's Magazine, Vogue Italia, Music & Literature, New York Times Magazine and New Yorker. Big Kiss, Bye-Bye is her third work of fiction.