Unveiling Life’s Quiet Secrets: Beth Ann Fennelly’s Micro-Memoirs Will Change How You See Goodbyes Forever
Reviewed by Vicki Mayk
As someone who writes micro essays, I was eager to review Beth Ann Fennelly’s collection of micro memoirs, The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs (W.W. Norton, February 2026). I liked her first book, Heating and Cooling. And now that I’ve read the latest book by a writer whose name has become synonymous with the micro form, I’m reminded of what Mikhail Baryshnikov once said of Fred Astaire: “No dancer can watch him and not know that all the rest of us should be in a different business.”
