How To Leave Your Family

Maeve Holler's debut collection, HOW TO LEAVE YOUR FAMILY, inspects the idea of family, the creation and destruction of it, and what being part of one really means. The book poetically and speculatively retraces the life story of Holler's late grandmother-who grows up in Mississippi, escapes an abusive relationship, and flees to Georgia, only to leave her two children behind-and the mass of folklore that has always surrounded her. Holler's poems follow the aftermath of this story and pick up the pieces her grandmother left behind, and together, ultimately taking the shape of a multigenerational, coming-of-self narrative of witness.