Small Fires

“Reckoning with imperfect parents—what they owe us and what we owe them—is one of the chief tasks of these essays, which form a kind of pointillistic autobiography. Another is the construction of memories, even imagined, in which understanding and forgiveness trump judgment and hate.” —Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe “Small Fires is intelligent and elegant, shocking and saddening, heartfelt and hopeful.” —Cindy Wolfe Boynton, Minneapolis Star Tribune “In Small Fires, Julie Marie Wade. . . considers family and memory with a poetic eye and unabashed tongue. With her carefully chosen words and a studied deliberateness, Wade proves unafraid to delve into her past—to skillfully reconstruct the events of her youth, from the horrifying to the sentimental to the self-conscious and beyond. . . . Small Fires is Julie Marie Wade’s story, but the collection opens onto something universal—how we individuate from our family, how we become ourselves, what we carry forward from our pasts and make our own.” —Sarah Rauch, Lambda Literary "Julie Marie Wade is an intelligent and nuanced writer in whose competent hands the tired old tale of the broken family is invigorated and renewed. I don’t really care whether this book will be called a memoir, a group of lyric essays, or a bunch of nonfiction prose-poems. Whatever it’s called, it is exquisitely made and cuts right to the heart." —Rebecca Brown
“Reckoning with imperfect parents—what they owe us and what we owe them—is one of the chief tasks of these essays, which form a kind of pointillistic autobiography. Another is the construction of memories, even imagined, in which understanding and forgiveness trump judgment and hate.” —Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe “Small Fires is intelligent and elegant, shocking and saddening, heartfelt and hopeful.” —Cindy Wolfe Boynton, Minneapolis Star Tribune “In Small Fires, Julie Marie Wade. . . considers family and memory with a poetic eye and unabashed tongue. With her carefully chosen words and a studied deliberateness, Wade proves unafraid to delve into her past—to skillfully reconstruct the events of her youth, from the horrifying to the sentimental to the self-conscious and beyond. . . . Small Fires is Julie Marie Wade’s story, but the collection opens onto something universal—how we individuate from our family, how we become ourselves, what we carry forward from our pasts and make our own.” —Sarah Rauch, Lambda Literary "Julie Marie Wade is an intelligent and nuanced writer in whose competent hands the tired old tale of the broken family is invigorated and renewed. I don’t really care whether this book will be called a memoir, a group of lyric essays, or a bunch of nonfiction prose-poems. Whatever it’s called, it is exquisitely made and cuts right to the heart." —Rebecca Brown