Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett
Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, come over here and kiss me, it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.
| Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett | |
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| Category: Literary Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Heather Magee
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| Summary: An exquisite read. There is something truly captivating in the way Bennett writes which makes you feel known. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 168 | Date: October 2025 |
| Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1804271933 | |
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Bennett's prose style is confrontational. Her sentences are often amputated, abruptly severed before meaning fully blooms. She doesn't guide the reader gently into understanding; instead, she offers shards of insight which are suggestive and incomplete. We are never directly told what happened between the narrator and Robert Turner, her former professor, but the trauma he left behind pulses just beneath the surface of the narrative like an unhealed wound.
A peculiar focal point is the epistolary exchange between the narrator and another professor, Terrence Stone. Their correspondence becomes saturated with a motif of greenness - a symbol of truth, or perhaps of decay - and the narrator fixates on it more than the actual content of their dialogues. Much like her relationship with Xavier, this connection is condensed into metaphor: Xavier provides her with more flowers than she needs, while she longs only for a modest sprig. The metaphor captures their mismatch with aching precision.
Throughout, Bennett explores the devastating dissonance between what we experience and what we remember. Vast, meaningful stretches of life seem to slip through the narrative's loose net, while small, seemingly insignificant fragments cling stubbornly to its threads. This is not a novel of dramatic confession, but of interior archaeology: sifting through the residue of feeling, long after the events themselves have ended.
Emily Dickinson's poem There is a pain - so utter comes to mind:
There is a pain — so utter —
It swallows substance up —
Then covers the Abyss with Trance —
So Memory can step
Around — across — upon it —
As one within a Swoon —
Goes safely — where an open eye —
Would drop Him — Bone by Bone --
In this book, there are multiple metaphorical deaths. Living with the ghosts of those people who have since left the protagonist's life leads her to unpack fragments of her memory and unravel herself at the same time. The small, detailed snapshots of experiences which make the final cut seem unimportant, but their very survival speaks volumes.
I would like to thank the publisher for a copy of this book. I enjoyed it immensely and will be sure to read more of Bennett's work. Her writing reminded me of Helene Bessette's in her work Lili is Crying, which I highly recommend for further reading.
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