Small Fires: Essays

by Julie Marie Wade

This is a daughter’s story. In Small Fires, Julie Marie Wade recreates the landscape of her childhood with a lacemaker’s care, then turns that precise attention on herself. There are floating tea lights in the bath, coddled blossoms in the garden, and a mother straddling her teenage daughter’s back, astringent in hand, to better scrub her not-quite-presentable pores. And throughout, Wade traces this lost world with the same devotion as her mother among her award-winning roses. Small Fires is essay as elegy, but it is also essay as parsing, reconciliation, and celebration, all in the attempt to answer the question—what have you given up in order to become who you are?

Genres: Essays, Memoir, Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published October 21, 2011

About the author

Born in Seattle in 1979, Julie Marie Wade completed a Master of Arts in English at Western Washington University in 2003, a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh in 2006, and a PhD in Humanities at the University of Louisville in 2012. She has received the Chicago Literary Award in Poetry (2004), the Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize (2004), the Oscar Wilde Poetry Prize (2005), the Literal Latte Nonfiction Award (2006), two Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prizes (2006, 2010), the AWP Intro Journals Award for Nonfiction (2009), the American Literary Review Nonfiction Prize (2010), the Arts & Letters Nonfiction Prize (2010), an Al Smith Artist Grant from the Kentucky Arts Council (2010), the Thomas J. Hruska Nonfiction Prize (2011), the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir (2011), the Bloom Nonfiction Chapbook Prize (2012), a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund (2012), and seven Pushcart Prize nominations. Julie is the author of two collections of lyric nonfiction, Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures (Colgate University Press, 2010) and Small Fires (Sarabande Books, 2011); two collections of poetry, Without (Finishing Line Press, 2010) and Postage Due (White Pine Press, 2013); the creative nonfiction chapbook Tremolo: An Essay (Bloom Press, 2013); and the forthcoming When I Was Straight: Poems (A Midsummer Night's Press, 2014). She lives with her partner Angie Griffin in the Sunshine State and teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami.

Reviews

[Tammy V · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a one sit read. I couldn't put it down. It is "creative nonfiction" and written in the style of lyric essays: non-linear, poetic, white space.

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I'm ready to go back for a 2nd, closer reading (which I RARELY do) because of the craft involved. I want to parse how she did it.

My only complaint is the "parables" at the end. I got a bit lost in them - if she had just called them imaginings it would have been easier for me to read through them. I kept wondering if they were real, apparently not, but written as if, not as parables as I understand them: universal. They were very particular.

I have so many library books out right now I didn't realize this book is mine (I kept thinking: I need to buy this) and so I didn't mark it up the first read through. I will definitely be marking it up the 2nd read through.

Excerpt:
The girls I knew were learning how to be looked at to become mannequin-like in the mirror-windows My father has said more than once, "you need to learn how to take a compliment." He meant, *You need to learn how to comply.* Boys were looking al the time, and we were expected to receive their looks gratefully, modestly...Suddenly I seemed a huge moth pinned at m wingtips by scrutiny. The red velvet cushion of the display case had been meticulously laid out for me. This was not punishment. The glass came down quietly, without malice.

**
...I leave my basket and spring into action, disturbing the stillness of that pin-drop night, the parking lot mostl deserted, potholed and puddled.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wade's second collection of essays continues to flirt with the line between fiction and nonfiction (although her imagined encounters with her family are now referred to as "parables," which suggests at least a difference in genre). Family is at the center of this collection, although more properly, it's the absence of family that takes that place. Wade writes brutally about her parents--not in the sense that she's overly cruel towards them, but certainly in the sense that she refuses to put even the slightly of veneers on her experiences. Another reviewer mentions Wade's lesbian identity, but that feels like it's overstating the case--Wade and her partner discuss their identity as gay women, but a reader gets the feeling that the rift with her family has less to do with that specific thing and more with Wade's establishment of herself as a separate human being. Wade's remarkable with a turn of phrase, and I'm excited about what comes next for her.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sat down to begin this book, read a few chapters, and spent several hours with it to find myself finishing it. It was suggested to as an example of "speculative nonfiction." When this term was discussed, I had imagined it a little differently in my own writing, but Ward's use of this sub-genre is quite good considering her story and particularly because of her story. I believe it would be helpful for casual readers to be aware that some of this writing is a type of speculation.

As one reviewer has written, Ward has taken "the tired old tale of a broken home" and made it interesting with her expert use of language and storytelling. This would also classify as a coming of age and self-discovery story. Ward is discovering who she is and finds it doesn't fit with the idea her parents had for her.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Julie Marie Wade's collection of essays, Small Fires, is comprised of narratives about love, complex and often hurtful familial relationships, and secrets. The reader is guided through formative events in the author's life, each essay containing elements that inform the rest of the work, resulting in a cohesive (and heart-wrenching) collection. Wade navigates trauma and acceptance with clarity and grace.

A poignant and well-crafted collection.

[Superstition Review · Rating 5 out of 5]

Small Fires: Essays by Julie Wade captures the atmosphere of her youth well. We get to read her story in a way that makes us understand what her childhood was for her, and the impact of the people who were around her. They are not simply characters in her narrative but actual people, and she makes that distinction in her writing. Above all else, she is self-aware and we see the introspective thoughts she has as she recollects her youth.

Review by Dennise Garcia

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

These essays explore the places where love and conflict collide. They were really lovely, but some moved me more than others.