On Fanny Howe’s “Holy Smoke”

Fanny Howe wrote to the end of her 84 years, leaving behind more than fifty books of poetry, prose, and essays, published across a half century. This staggering rate of production is perhaps attributable to the profound restlessness—both geographic and spiritual—that guided Howe’s life. As Howe remarked in her final interview, “If I could say I was assigned something at birth, it would be to keep the soul fresh and clean, and to not let anything bring it down.” To keep the soul fresh is to forgo the security that typically accompanies maturation, instead embracing solitude, transience, and above all else, uncertainty. Howe’s fragmented, digressive prose reflects these itinerant preoccupations, and her novels often feature protagonists who are compelled, or forced, to upend their lives and roam into the unknown. Hers are afflicted, searching characters, “lost souls” who challenge what it means to be found.