Unveiling Life’s Quiet Secrets: Beth Ann Fennelly’s Micro-Memoirs Will Change How You See Goodbyes Forever
Reading her work is both intimidating and inspiring. For those of us who aspire to write micro, Fennelly shows us how it’s done in a book that brilliantly leverages the shortest of forms to tell profound stories of grief, loss, humor, friendship, marriage and more. A poet first – she is a one-time poet laureate of Mississippi – she brings her poetic sensibility to her short prose, employing enviable economy of language and strong imagery.
An Irish goodbye, for those who don’t know, is the act of leaving a place or event quietly, with no notice. It’s an appropriate title for Fennelly’s book, which deals with the death of her sister – a sudden loss inspiring the book’s title. She captures this in the smallest of micros, a single sentence that is the book’s title essay: “How, without farewells, you slipped out the back door of the party of your life, O my sister.”
