Big Kiss, Bye-Bye cover art

Big Kiss, Bye-Bye

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Big Kiss, Bye-Bye

By: Claire-Louise Bennett
Narrated by: Claire-Louise Bennett
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About this listen

The things that hold life in place have been lifted off and put away. Uprooted by circumstance from city to deep countryside, a woman lives in temporary limbo, visited by memories of all she's left behind. The most insistent are those of Xavier, who has always been certain he knows her better than anyone, better than she knows herself. Xavier, whom she still loves but no longer desires, a displacement he has been unable to accept.

An unexpected letter from an old acquaintance brings back a torrent of others she's loved or wanted. Each has been a match and a mismatch, a liberation and a threat to her very sense of self. The ephemera left by their passage – a spilled coffee, an unwanted bouquet, a mind-blowing kiss – make up a cabinet of curiosity she inventories, trying to divine the essence of intimacy.

What does it mean to connect with another person? What impels us to touch someone, to be touched by them, to stay in touch? How do we let them go? In yet another tour de force of fiction, Claire-Louise Bennett explores the mystery of how people come into and go out of our lives, leaving us forever in their grasp.

©2025 Claire-Louise Bennett (P)2025 Fitzcarraldo Editions Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction

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Critic reviews

‘Bennett writes like no one else. She is a rare talent.’ — Karl Ove Knausgaard
All stars
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I loved this strange short book. It pulled me in. It reminded me of the memoirs of Deborah Levy. Very perceptive and probably very autobiographical but not explicitly. Very piercing insights in relationships, intimacy, being alone and the banale stuff of everyday life. Clever and intelligent and innocent. Can’t wait to read more of her work. Great to have the author narrate it to as for me it adds authenticity.

Very original writing

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