Unveiling Life’s Quiet Secrets: Beth Ann Fennelly’s Micro-Memoirs Will Change How You See Goodbyes Forever
The essays about her sister are among the book’s best, capturing a sibling relationship through childhood and adolescence and later its loss in adulthood. Among the most powerful of these is a somewhat longer flash essay titled “Dad Gave Us Twenty Dollars, Which Was A Lot In 1979.” In it, Fennelly recalls a visit to a house of horrors when her sister was 10 and she was 8. Hearing frightening sounds while waiting in line, she has a meltdown, leading to her sister taking her outside and the loss of the $20 paid to see the attraction. She deftly flashes forward from that memory, writing:
