A Soul-Satisfying Alternative: Review of Beth Ann Fennelly鈥檚听Heating & Cooling
Brenna Lemieux
Reviewed:听Heating & Cooling听by Beth Ann Fennelly (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017)
What鈥檚 the proper literary form to capture the anecdote? Beth Ann Fennelly鈥檚 newest collection,听Heating & Cooling, makes the case that it is the micro-memoir鈥攖hat is, the personal essay that ranges from a single line to about six pages. If the full-length memoir is akin to the studio portrait, this collection, which contains 52 literary anecdotes, offers something like a handful of skillfully rendered charcoal sketches.
There鈥檚 a lot to love here, but one of my favorite things is that听Heating & Cooling听is a kind of Trojan horse of poetry; the 鈥渕icro-memoir鈥� form, it turns out, has plenty of room for prose poems. If there鈥檚 a reader in your life who is skeptical about poetry, this collection might be the gateway drug they need.
Though perhaps 鈥済ateway drug鈥� isn鈥檛 fair; what鈥檚 in these pages is heavy stuff. Fennelly鈥檚 lilting narratives usher the reader along smoothly, then punch like poems in their last words: you never see the turns coming but are walloped by them again and again. That鈥檚 what struck me most about听Heating & Cooling, in fact: Fennelly makes this form look easy. She deftly weaves summary and scene (as in 鈥淚 Survived the Blizzard of 鈥�79鈥�), zooming in and out to offer just enough that we get the essence of the story and feel its emotional resonance. These pieces feel conversational, as if you鈥檙e sitting across from a friend drinking coffee鈥攂ut as it turns out, the friend is a wildly talented storyteller who knows exactly which details to include and when for maximum impact (see 鈥淏ad Break鈥�).
The collection jumps in time and subject matter, but the first-person narrator is consistent throughout: charmingly flawed and self-aware (鈥淭heir avarice was so unabashed that it was difficult to keep despising them, but I, large of righteousness and small of diamond, persevered all the way to Denver鈥�), funny (see 鈥淵our Turn鈥� and the 鈥淢arried Love鈥� series), and able to capture complex human relationships in just a few striking lines (鈥淚 didn鈥檛 want to suffer because the last time I saw my father, I didn鈥檛 tell him I loved him. I could hear my own future voice,听If only I鈥檇 told him I loved him. I wanted to spare my future me, whom I did love. So I told him I loved him and I left鈥�). Someone, in other words, with whom you鈥檇 happily spend more time than the 100-some pages of this book.
While Fennelly鈥檚 skill is magnificent throughout, I had favorites and less-than-favorites鈥攂ut I think every reader will. Part of the fun of the collection is discovering those that resonate most. And because the book is small and light鈥攅asily carried in a pocket or purse鈥攜ou can do that, piece by piece, waiting in lines or for lights to change鈥攁 soul-satisfying alternative to scrolling through Twitter. It鈥檚 a charming way to discover a book, and one of the many gifts听Heating & Cooling听offers its readers.
听has been lucky enough to live and write in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Paris, and Galway. She has published two poetry collections and a handful of short stories. She currently lives in Chicago, where she's at work on a novel.