The Best American Essays 2014: An Anthology of the Year's Most Important Literary and Magazine Writing

by John Jeremiah Sullivan (Editor), Robert Atwan (Series Editor)

“A creature from an alternative universe . . . wanting to understand what is on the American mind should rush to the nearest bookstore and buy a copy of this distinguished anthology . . . Exhilarating.” — Publishers Weekly The Best American Essays 2014 is selected and introduced by John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of  the critically acclaimed essay collection Pulphead . The New York Times  placed Sullivan “among the best young nonfiction writers in English” and the New York Times Book Review heralded Pulphead as “the best, and most important, collection of magazine writing since Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again .”

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Anthologies, Memoir, 21st Century, Read For School, Collections

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

John Jeremiah Sullivan is an American writer and editor. He is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine, and southern editor of The Paris Review.

Sullivan's first book, Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son, was published in 2004. It is part personal reminiscence, part elegy for his father, and part investigation into the history and culture of the Thoroughbred racehorse. His second book, Pulphead: Essays (2011), is an anthology of fourteen updated magazine articles.

Reviews

[Mmars · Rating 1 out of 5]

Before you read this collection of essays, ask yourself what you are expecting. Personally, I was looking for ingenious thought and wisdom. And, perhaps, insight and understanding of peoples unlike me. If you are a budding essayist trying to get a pulse on what publishers are looking for in personal essays today, then you had better start living on the fringe or be extremely frank about your sex life or grow up with violence or abuse, or be obsessive. Oh, and do drugs. If you’re “normal” and just have ingenious thoughts and ways of looking at things, good luck.

I can only say, America, what has happened? Is this really the state of American essay today? Is our self-centered-ness really this warped? Of the twenty-one essayists, I was familiar with approximately half of them, which was even more disappointing. Even the ones I expected to enlighten, with one exception, let me down. I was introduced to one, only one, whose work I will search out. Nine of them teach…..scary…what do they encourage in writing?

Do the essays make a point? Does the beginning paragraph establish a theme, a question, a paradox that establishes a thread in the essay that is knotted by the end? Or, is the writer meaninglessly meandering? Has the essay really devolved to this? Has American life and thought become this shallow? Is the current essay just about sharing some sordid bit of debauchery one has experienced?

Lastly, as readers, are we so inured to such topics that we now believe that is what America is about? Do we no longer marvel at scientific discovery? Are we no longer astonished by personal achievement? Are we no longer humbled by public service? Are we really just gawkers and voyeurs?

I did read every essay, mostly because I was traveling with and visiting family and usually find it difficult to concentrate on longer works in that situation. Anyone who reads my reviews knows that I try to be objective toward the writing itself in a book. However, I’m throwing that stricture out the window here. No matter the writing, personally, this book failed me. If it wasn’t a library book, I would likely have thrown it out the car window on my way home

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I order this every year, and generally I hunt and peck at the collection. Checking them off as I go and maybe I read the whole collection, maybe not. This year, thanks to a round trip flight this week, I read the collection strait through, and enjoyed it thoroughly. The collection this year was a good one for me. I am a different, and I hope, larger person because of many essays I've read in this series over the years. I cannot guarantee the same results for everyone, but the authors I find here tend to help me know and appreciate myself and my humanity in ways I didn't before I met them and in ways I can easily forget if I don't keep reminding myself to stay connected. This collection keeps me connected in so many ways, and refocuses my understanding and appreciation. For what marriage is and hilariously isn't, thanks to Timothy Aubrey. What begin sixty-five means and doesn't have to mean thanks to Emily Fox Gordon. How to make yourself a slave without even realizing it thanks to Jerald walker. What joy is. What an enemy is. What a dreamer is. What a Slickhead is.

Over the years the work featured in BAE has frequently made me laugh. Occasionally they make me cry. This year they did both. I got several chuckles from Wells Tower and his visit to Burning man with his 70-year-old father. I felt comforted by the Yiyun Li's note to her "Dear Friend." I was humbled and reminded that the trifles I thought were problems are really merely distractions, and made grateful for so many things I have not had to endure Thanks to Ariel Levy's courageous account of her Thanksgiving in Mongolia.

Some of my favorite excerpts:
----------------------------

"I believe that postmodern theorists who say that beauty is a socially constructed category and a threat, who say there is no such thing as an author and that fiction is an outdated artifact, are my enemy."
~Mary Gordon "On Enmity"

"The thing no one ever tells you about joy is that there is very little real pleasure in it. And yet if it hadn't happened at all, at least once, how would we live?"
~ Zadie Smith "Joy"

"So maybe the greatest gift marriage gives us is the chance to fantasize, to imagine that there's more to life than there actually is, and it accomplishes this by assuming responsibility for all the misery and dullness that we would otherwise equate with life itself.
But it's not actually marriage that does this: it's your spouse. One saintly individual steps forward and volunteers to be the fall guy, to absorb the entirety of your existential bitterness for decades to come, so that you can think life isn't quite as bad as you once feared, since everything that's wrong with it is actually your spouse's fault."
~Timothy Aubrey "A Matter of Life and Death"

"One's intuition looks for immunity from two kinds of people. Those who confirm one's beliefs about life, and those who turn one's belief into nothing. The latter are the natural predators of our hearts, the former made into enemies because we are, unlike other species, capable of not only enlarging, but also diminishing our precarious selves."
~Yiyun Li "Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life"

"Even if you are not Robinson Crusoe in a solitary fort, as a human being you walk this world by yourself. But when you are pregnant, you are never alone" ~Ariel Levey "Thanksgiving in Mongolia"

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rarely do I sit down and read an entire anthology of short stories or essays such as The Best American Essays collections. I have flipped through different selections in the past, choosing to read the authors I was most familiar with, or the stories or essays that have attracted me from the first sentence. I found, however, that to sit down and read an entire collection is to have the opportunity to bathe in different pools of water—cool and refreshing.

The Best American Essays series has been an annual staple since 1986. A different guest editor in each issue chooses about a quarter of the authors selected by the series editor. The candidates are chosen from works published in the previous year in literary magazines, from The Point to Harper’s Magazine to GQ and more.

The 2014 issue is an eclectic collection of authors who have told their truth as they know it. They are often raw and personal, as most evidenced in Ariel Levy’s “Thanksgiving in Mongolia” (about the heartbreaking experience of losing a premature baby in a different country) or Barry Lopez’s “Sliver of Sky” and Chris Offut’s “Someone Else” (both about repeated sexual abuse and rape). These authors have ripped open their souls and bared all for millions to read in awe-inspiring honesty. Other essays are more mundane, but no less poignant, such as Emily Fox Gordon’s “On Sixty-Five” (about the process of aging) or James Woods’ “Becoming Them” (about watching our loved ones age before us).

Series editor Robert Atwan writes extensively of truth in this issue, acknowledging that if someone’s truth is not in some way verifiable, the reader has no way for sure knowing the validity of an essay. “No one has ever verified the now famous deaths of George Orwell’s elephant or Virginia Woolf’s moth, though the passing of E.B. White’s poor pig can actually be documented,” he reminds us (p ix). He goes on to talk about trigger warnings, and bemoans how much of a necessity it has become in our society to warn readers of difficult material ahead. Trigger warnings do serve a purpose at times, however, and many of the essays in this collection (particularly the previously mentioned Levy, Lopez, and Offutt essays) should be visited with some trepidation due to the subject matter and graphic descriptions.

As with any collection of writing, some essays are better or stronger than others. Or, perhaps, some essays appeal to me more than others. But I can appreciate each essay is someone’s truth, even if it is different than my own. I found that in spite of those differences, I found similarities in their experiences. While I have not experienced life as a black man, I can still find myself understanding and relating to Jerald Walker’s “How to Make a Slave” or Yiyun Li’s “Dear Friend, From My Life I write to You in Your Life”, even though I did not move to America from China. The essayists write their truths in compelling and universal ways, making the reader of this issue realize how similar our lives can be. This is the power behind a good essay, after all, with or without trigger warnings. As Vivian Gornick wrote in "Letter from Greenwich Village": “It’s the voices I can’t do without” (p64).

[Bibliophile10 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provided a strange reading experience: Sullivan's intro is weirdly scholarly, especially in contrast to the essays he selected, which are very personal. Of the volume's nine initial essays, I'd read again only Kristin Dombek's "Letter from Williamsburg" (which, as far as I can tell, has little to do with anything epistolary); it is again quite personal and--for BAEs-- rather racy (though not regrettably so). The remaining twelve essays are much stronger than the first several; eight of them I'd return to:

- Jamison's "The Devil's Bait"
- Levy's "Thanksgiving in Mongolia"
- Li's "Dear Friend, From My Life I write to You in Your Life"
- Lopez's "Sliver of Sky" (the first Lopez piece that had me completely)
- Offutt's "Someone Else"
- Smith's "Joy"
- Tower's "The Old Man at Burning Man"
- West's "On Being Introduced"

According to my checkmark system, two received double checkmarks (i.e. "excellent")--Li's and Lopez's. The rest received single checkmarks (i.e. "good").

Overall, the volume is much better than I'd initially thought, and offered a variety of voices that aren't afraid of self-awareness in this post-memoir age. AND (kudos to Sullivan) ten of the twenty-one essays are written by women. No other male BAE editor I've encountered thus far has been as equitable.

On a final and cosmetic note, the series's new jacket design and material feel less distinctive. The cover is glossy, like most other trade and mass paperbacks; gone is the grippy texture of the jackets that used to cling slightly to your fingers. There's also a corny, printed-on "bent corner" that reveals the year (no serious writer or reader would bend forward the cover of their book--even when faked, it's no laughing matter). My last superficial observation is that this year's cover color is too similar to recent years', e.g. 2012. If BAE is going to continue the tradition of differently hued covers, they should make use of their countless options.

Those are (some of) my strong feelings. Now read.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved seven, liked eight, DNF six. This is usually the case with most Best American compilations - whether they be essays mysteries, short stories, or non-required reading. As usual, it is so hard to figure out how to rate these anthologies because just as I did not finish six of them, it obviously doesn’t negate from the other 15. So those 15 is what I’m rating.

My favorite essay in the book is Barry Lopez’s “Sliver of Sky” that is about his horrific experience at the hands of a pedophile who, coincidentally, dated his mother and was close on a professional level to another family member. In lieu of all that has recently come to light about Michael Jackson I read this essay with fresh eyes. It is a phenomenal piece!

[Stephanie Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 out of 5 stars roughly based on percentage of the essays that I genuinely liked.

I enjoyed the curation of this collection! Loved some essays, felt ambivalent about others, but nearly every one tickled my brain and has made me stop to look up from the pages at some point and go ‘huh.’ Enjoyed the variance of topics and all of the places that these books took me to; favorite essay by far and away was DEAR FRIENDS, FROM MY LIFE I WRITE TO YOU IN YOUR LIFE by Yiyun Li, originally published in A Public Space. Will def be looking into individual writers next year based on how much I enjoyed their essays in this selection.

[Art · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a perennial reader of this annual series, I look forward to its publication every October to discover interesting thoughts, ideas and, well, essays. But this year's volume arrived as the least satisfying one in the series. Little here connected with me.

Robert Atwan, in his foreword, lamented the increasing use of "trigger warnings" at colleges. Atwan, the series editor, noted that these new alerts warn students about material that may upset them. That was interesting. One essayist in here mused about being introduced over the years, describing the perils of speaking after introducers who, for example, read his entire curriculum vitae to the audience. That was interesting and amusing.

Each year's guest editor writes the introduction, usually pondering the essay as a form before pointing to some of the contributions in the book. This year's twelve-page introduction, The Ill-Defined Plot, did not tie the pieces in here by themes or other trends apparent in the year's writings. I missed that aspect of the editor's note.

Disappointing. One and a half stars. Good writing, but unappealing topics.

Several hundred notable essays of 2013 appear at the end, chosen by Atwan. Intriguing titles, such as this half dozen, did not make the cut: Do Not Brainstorm, The Secret Lives of Stories, Scientism in the Arts and Humanities, Crimes Against Humanities, as well as Telling Who I Am Before I Forget: My Dementia; What is The Common Good? The Case for Transcending Partisanship; and, Galileo in the Uecker Seats: Reflections on Failed Observations. It's easy enough to find some of these online.

Hope renews itself. I hope that the 2015 edition again will earn four or five stars.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a slow start and an outrageously boring opening essay by John Jeremiah Sullivan, this had several great entries:

~At 65, Emily Fox Gordon
~Letter from Greenwich Village, Vivian Gornick
~Sliver of Sky, Barry Lopez
~Someone Else, Chris Offutt (I’ll be tracking down his short stories)
~Little X, Elizabeth Tallent (great evocation of childhood)
~The Old Man at Burning Man, Wells Tower (although this doesn’ t beat the festival essay American Juggalo in last year’s Pushcart Prize anthology)
~How to Make a Slave, Jerald Walker

My absolute favorite was Ariel Levy’s Thanksgiving in Mongolia, which is apparently going to be expanded into a full-length book!

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection that I read straight through for the Read Harder Challenge. Although it is arranged alphabetically, there is a rhythm to it. The middle descends into despair but there are laughs toward the end.

The first few women included talk about nonconformist sex acts, and I wondered is that what it takes to be noticed as a woman writer? Whether by the editor or the selection committee or indeed the publishing industry? Other women who wrote about other topics are included--but they seem younger- so I'm not entirely willing to go to the mat on this argument, but it's noticeable. High points included Zadie Smith on joy, Ariel Levy's devastating Thanksgiving in Mongolia, Jerald Walker's monitoring of his young sons' experience of racism, and Wells Tower's trip to Burning Man with his father.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was originally published at The Scrying Orb.

Last year it was all about divorced self absorption and the shadow of dead parents. What’s the theme this year, eh? Guest editor John Jeremiah Sullivan launches the book* with the hardline stance of the granddaddy-of-all-essays Michel de Montaigne: by examining oneself, one can examine all humanity.

And this is how the essays tie to one another. A writer investigates something — say, the burning man festival, child abuse, or a rare disease — and extrapolates it far beyond the personal to a universal shared experience. Typically death is involved. Death of self, death of parents, death of innocence, death of children, and so on. The Ultimate Concern. Lo, us poor creatures who became aware of our own guaranteed annihilation.

The thing about these essays is they are almost never bad or even mediocre; An essay on being introduced as a public speaker, the only piece that doesn’t quite mesh with Sullivan/Montaigne’s universal appeal theme is curiously the only one I straight up didn’t like. But. There’s also very few that are exceptional. The best essay in the book I had already read and I’ve already forgotten several of them.

The Best Ones:

Thanksgiving in Mongolia by Ariel Levy — A 5 month pregnant woman stubbornly decides to fly to Ukraine for a journalism piece. More to prove she can do it to herself and everyone else rather than any pressing political-writing need.Then the pain starts. Chilling, awe-inspiring, and hard to forget. I read this months ago, but it was just as powerful the second time around.

The Man at the the River by Dave Eggers — An American man and his Sudanese friend rest by a river; The Sudanese wants to wade the river but the American does not for fear of catching an infection in a deep gash on his leg. Cultural differences abound. This is almost a parable. No one is named and it’s very short, but perfectly encapsulates its theme: a westerner desperately trying to avoid being a stereotype, even as it inevitably occurs.

The Devil’s Bait by Leslie Jamison – Jamison attends a conference in support of Morgellons disease, a rare affliction that may or may not even be ‘real’ and affects people differently. They might feel worms crawling out of their skin, or get very itchy, or have little crystals start protruding from their flesh. The professional medical community is fairly sure it’s a psychological problem, but the affected patients gather, trying to take pictures or bring ziplocked evidence of their foreign growths. Or just for moral and social support. Jamison wonders if it honestly matters whether the symptoms are ‘real’ — that is, actual organic crystals or worms protruding from skin. If the suffering is so acutely felt, shouldn’t that be all that’s required for our empathy?



*OK, so Sullivan’s essay doesn’t actually start the book. There’s a brief introduction by series editor Robert Atwan, who has been running this every year since 1985, the year I was born. His topic is nothing less than the assault on Truth and Free Speech and Censorship in America. It’s embarrassingly out of touch and feels profoundly old.

His adversary of choice are ‘trigger warnings’, which he totally mischaracterizes to suit his point of an America in danger of censorship. Trigger warnings are bits of text preceding a piece, warning of potentially upsetting content. Not upsetting like a fly in your spaghetti, not upsetting like a bad piece of world news ruining your mood, but the sort of upsetting Great-Great Uncle Jim, trench veteran of WWI, felt when he was diving for cover, dazed and terrified at any old loud noise. It’s to stop people who have suffered greatly from having to relieve that suffering or potentially trigger a PTSD response. And indeed, the two back-to-back child abuse essays in 2014 (a mean trick of listing things in alphabetical order) are devastating, important, and extremely well written; but I would never ask someone who had experienced anything so terrible to read either without warning.

Instead, Atwan sees trigger warnings as a content endorsement for the general ‘young’ American populace to avoid reading anything that makes them uncomfortable. He also refers to a story written in 1980’s Baltimore street vernacular as ‘A Clockwork Orange-esque’. Uh. Being embarrassed by Grandpa here…

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually love reading these anthologies but I found most of the essays uninteresting and very forgettable. There were some good ones, though.

At Sixty-five (Emily Fox Gordon), was a very thoughtful reflection on aging. Letter from Greenwich Village (Vivian Gornick), was a great story beginning with a once-a-week meeting between the author and Crazy Leonard then continuing to explore everyday life on the streets of Manhattan.

The best essay by far was The Devil’s Bait (Lisa Jamison), which was about Morgellon’s syndrome in which people report being attacked by insects inside their skin but physicians can’t find any of the insects. Zadie Smith essays are always included in these collections but this one about the difference between joy and pleasure was intermittently interesting and zany.

Another great essay, Legend: Willem de Kooning (Baron Wormser) told the artist's story from an energized first person point of view.

[Whitney Archibald · Rating 3 out of 5]

I look forward to this book every year for a smorgasbord of great writing, fresh ideas, and diverse topics. This year, not so much. Individually, there were still some beautiful essays in here. But I just felt like it was the same thing over and over again -- way too many personal essays. I'm usually a fan of personal essays, but after this collection I just felt burdened by all the different and profound ways humans can suffer. Plus, the edgier content fell way over the ledge for me.

On a bright note, I found the essays I was hoping to find in this book in "The Best American Science and Nature Writing." Go pick that up instead.

[Benjamin Fowler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great edition with a great introduction by the guest editor. This series has been a yearly read for me since I was introduced in 2003.

[Susana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing after last last year's selections.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admittedly, essays can be hit or miss. A lot of it depends on the style of the writer, and a greater portion depends on the reception by the reader. That said, from John Jeremiah Sullivan's insufferable introduction, I only enjoyed about half the essays. The opening one by Timothy Aubry, "A Matter of Life and Death," made me believe that the remaining essays would be as well-written and sensible as it was. By the time I got to Baron Wormser's equally insufferable final essay on Willem De Kooning, I couldn't have been happier that the book had ended. That really disappoints me, given that before this one, I've had a near-perfect record with this series. Hopefully, the 2015 edition will redeem the 2014 one. We'll see.

[k-os]

The collection got off to a slow start for me but picked up major steam. Already /loved/ Jamison's "Devil's Bait" (humane to the max) and Jerald Walker's "How to Make a Slave" (hilaAArious and poignant) from their collections. Fell newly in love with Lawrence Jackson's "Slickheads" (the vuh-oyce!), Ariel Levy's "Thanksgiving in Mongolia" (heartbreaking), and Kristin Dombek's "Letter from Williamsburg" (she had me with threesomes + god). Lots of other good ones, too.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sullivan's aesthetic is definitely reflected here. If you've read his collection many of the themes will be familiar. I was surprised by a few essays here. My favorite was How to Make a Slave by Jerald Walker. Many of the essays were depressing and there was a strange emphasis on childhood sexual abuse, and death. Overall, I'm glad I read it. I always enjoy a mix of essays.

[Sindre Homlong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Av bokserier er dette min favorittserie. Den har eksistert i 20-30 år, kanskje mer, og jeg har 22 stk bakover fra 2020. Essays er ikke fagartikler, men fortellinger eller tekster som oftest tar utgangspunkt i egne opplevelser og klarer å skape noe originalt, gripende eller viktig ut fra dette. De siste årene er serien blitt politisk på bekostning av kvalitet, men årgang 2014 kan anbefales.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although any of these collections is a mixed bag, this collection had many more essays that resonated with me than the usual.

[Richard Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly fine group of essays.

[Jacqueline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course, not ALL of the essays I found appealing, but that's the fun part about a compendium, lots of new voices to hear and stories to experience.

[Luis Bazet · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Brad]

checked out for Dave Eggers' "The Man at the River"

[Nita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each guest editor of any given BAE puts her fingerprints on the curated collection, and while generally one can expect at least one essay by a brand name for the sake of marketing (e.g. there always seems to be a Zadie Smiff essay in every recent BAE, and her essay is always one of the three weakest #haterade), there are often a good mix of memoir from big magazines and top tier small presses alike. Over the past twenty years there has been a trend away from journalistic-y magazine-y essay-things (think: umami and/or anything Gladwell) and towards more memoir-y stuff. BAEs edited by DFW and Cheryl Strayed come to mind. BAE 2014 is no different.

Less experienced readers of the contemporary literary essay* may wonder why there are two "Letter from <>" essays, without being aware that the "Letter from" conceit is common for certain literary magazines, Paris Review in particular (from which both "Letter from" essays were selected). And less experienced readers of essays and more broadly creative nonfiction may bristle that two essays in a row (because: sorted alphabetically) were written by well-known (amongst literary writers, at least) survivors of childhood molestation. Essays are not now nor have they ever been fare to be enjoyed by cream puffs, at least not serious essays worth their name in the long hand of Legit Lit. Sez me. Anyway, if you can't swim in the deep waters that'll make you a more empathic human being, then I suggest heading over to your couch and watching a Hollywood blockbuster. And/or keep publishing reviews of essay anthologies on GoodReads so I can sigh loudly at my laptop screen.

I can't figure out, even with the help of "Formatting Tips," how to create a bulleted list, so here are links to my favorite quotations from some of my favorite essays in the BAE 2014:

Vivian Gornick's Letter from Greenwich Village: http://librarienne.com/from-letter-fr...
Lawrence Jackson's Slickheads http://librarienne.com/fanatically-ex...
Leslie Jamison's The Devil's Bait http://librarienne.com/from-the-devil... (probably the best essay in her Empathy Exams collection, which I thought was a great collection of essays that mark a certain point of time of a future great -- I think over time she'll come to see that collection as reminiscent of a somewhat jejune period in her, uh, 'journey,' one in which she felt she needed to jazz hands people with IQ baubles to prove that she was worth something)
Yiyun Li's Dear Friend http://librarienne.com/underlined-dea... <-- Language is a bit awkward but her English is mucho better than my Chinese
Barry Lopez's Sliver of Sky http://librarienne.com/underlined-in-... <-- strongest piece I've read by him. Finally, Lopez keeps it real and takes it all off. (too soon? by 'it' i mean clinical armor, of course)
Elizabeth Tallent's Little X http://librarienne.com/underlined-in-... <-- demonstrates a strong mastery of craft and is the most inventive and surprising in how she lets her story unfold, or whatever (forgive me, I am tired)
Jerald Walker's How To Make a Slave http://librarienne.com/how-to-make-a-...
Paul West's On Being Introduced http://librarienne.com/from-on-being-...
Baron Wormser's Legend: Willem de Kooning: http://librarienne.com/legend-willem-...

I should note that at least two (2) cats make cameos and/or are alluded to in this volume.

I should also note that my name is listed in the back of this book under the literary equivalent of, say, "Best Sportsmanship" i.e. as a notable. "You weren't the most valuable essay. You weren't even one of the best! But, we noted you. Here's a note. Buh bye."

* i.e. "I am now going to condescend to dilettantes whose reading street cred I deem inferior to my own"

[Brad Hodges · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Also in store are recurring nightmares, obsessive behavior, the fears and anxieties of aging, suicide, and--as they say in those infomercials--a whole lot more," heralds Robert Alwan, series editor of The Best American Essays 2014. Indeed, this selection, narrowed down by John Jeremiah Sullivan, does tilt toward the dark side. There are two essays, one by Barry Lopez and another by Chris Offut, that detail their childhood abuse at the hands of a pedophile. By accident of the alphabet, these essays are back to back, and I don't recommend reading them both in one sitting.

There are indeed essays about obsessive behavior. Timothy Aubry writes about his night terrors n "A Matter of Life and Death,", while Leslie Jamison informs us about a syndrome called Morgellons disease, which involves strange hairs coming out of the body, and uncontrollable itching. "Itching is powerful: the impulse that tells someone to scratch lights up the same neural pathways as chemical addiction. An itch that starts in the brain feels just like an itch on the skin, and it can begin with something as simple as a thought. It can begin from reading a paragraph like this one." How many of you just read that and felt an itch?

Zadie Smith pens a delightful essay, "Joy," about the difference between pleasure and joy. She begins, "It might be useful to distinguish between pleasure and joy. But maybe everybody does this very easily, all the time, and only I am confused. A lot of people seem to feel that joy is only the intense version of pleasure, arrived at by the same road--you simply have to a little further down the track. That has not been my experience." She goes on to say that joy is only felt a few times in a lifetime, and is so emotionally exhausting that one wouldn't want too much of it.

Other highlights include "Slickheads," by Lawrence Jackson, written in the language of the streets, and the very fine "Thanksgiving in Mongolia," in which Ariel Levy details the painful story of how she gave birth and then the baby died while in that country on an assignment. James Wood writes, in "Becoming Them," how people do become their parents.

I have two favorites. First is Wendy Brenner's "Strange Beads," about how, during a time of difficult health problems, she became fascinated by a seller of mostly junk and costume jewelry on eBay. What interested her is that each item was sold separately, thousands of them. It's a delightful personal essay that intersects with life in these times.

But my favorite is Wells Tower's hilarious "The Old Man at Burning Man." He, about forty, takes his elderly father and two other elders to the Burning Man festival. This sounds like a fish-out-of-water cliche, and it is, but Tower writes so well, and it's laugh out loud funny. I've never been to Burning Man, and am certainly too old to go now (I would go hoping to get laid, and end up extremely disappointed) but I feel like Tower took the trip for me. Here's his opening paragraph, in all it's glory:

"The land, the very atmosphere out there, is alien, malignant, the executioner of countless wagon trains. I am afraid to crack the window. Huge dervishes of alkaline dust reel and teeter past. The sun, a brittle parchment white, glowers as though we personally have done something to piss it off. An hour out here and already I could light an Ohio Blue Tip off the inside of my nostril. One would think we were pulling into the planet's nearest simulation of hell, but if this were hell, we would not be driving this very comfortable recreational vehicle. Nor would there be a trio of young and merry nudists capering at our front bumper, demanding that we step out of the vehicle and join them."

While as all the Best of series is a mixed bag, I found this particularly strong, if only for those last two pieces.

[Ray Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Best American Essays, 2014
Reviewed by Ray Zimmerman

The fire dancers retreat. The drill-chuck-mansion pedestal goes up in a great pumping beefheart of flame. My father sits in a rain of cinders as big as playing cards, more than sufficient to ignite the infant wisps of his remaining hair. Unconcerned, he gawps at the flames. The danger is unreal to him, or not as important as the splendid inferno before him. – Wells Tower, “The Old Man at Burning Man”

Tower’s essay, quoted above, is not typical of the works included in this volume, because it cannot be typical. The editors considered hundreds published essays for inclusion in this year’s edition of their annual volume and selected them on the basis of the writing only. There is no central topic for these works.

Among the twenty-one essays is “The Man at the River” in which Dave Eggers describes an American traveling in South Sudan, a man who only wishes to sit by the bank of a river, perhaps wholly ignorant of the intent of a local person who designs all sorts of plans to get him across the river to see his home on the other side. Two other essayists describe the vicissitudes of aging, one focusing on how he is becoming like his middle aged parents who themselves are becoming elderly, becoming “someone else.”

Barry Lopez describes a childhood in which he suffered horrific and systematic abuse at the hands of a man who practiced medicine with suspect credentials. Meanwhile, Ariel Levy describes an event in a hotel room in Mongolia which may totally shake up the reader. On the lighter side, Paul West describes all of the things that can possibly go wrong when a speaker is introduced to an audience.

Then there is “The Old Man at Burning Man,” in which Wells Tower describes a visit to a festival, perhaps best described as a temporary city in the Nevada desert. The unique arts and countercultural events, some of them possibly drug induced, and definitely involving various levels of nudity, turn out to be more shocking to Tower than his less inhibited sixty-nine year old father who accompanies him. The title left me wondering which of them was the old man.

In her essay, “Joy,” Zadie Smith describes joy as an ecstatic state, wholly different from pleasure. She states, in fact, that joy may contain little if any pleasure, but often includes an element of terror. She describes motherhood for herself as a joyful experience, the terror of which is rooted in the possibility that something could go wrong.

Both the Forward by Robert Atwan and the Introduction by John Jeremiah Sullivan include some discussion of the structure and the origins of the essay as a form, citing Francis Bacon, King James I, and Montaigne as early practitioners, but the included works truly speak for themselves. Though some of the essays are disconcerting, each is a great read, a finely sculpted piece of literature, drawn from such diverse sources as Harpers, Grist, and The Yale Review. Get a copy today.

[Alexia · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment. I've read a bunch of these from different years and this is by far the worst. Even with one of my favorite writers (Zadie Smith) included (hers was great though).

It starts off horrendous and gets better. Robert Atwan's forward made me quite upset. It's the ramblings of an old man, which was tolerable up until he started talking about trigger warnings.

I am someone who benefits from trigger warnings. Giving me the power to be in a safe space when I read about rape let's me read about rape. Not letting me know denies me the choice to find that safe space. Springing it on me contributes to my nightmares and anxiety. And when I'm having nightmares and anxiety, I'm not reading. Trigger warnings have given me the freedom to read more prolifically and about more upsetting content, which is what Robert Atwan wants as well. However, he's under the impression that trigger warnings act as a form of censorship and do the opposite of how I've seen them work in my life (limits the content people read). He doesn't cite any sources or evidence for this idea, he just puts it out there like it's fact and runs with it. I want people to have opinions and state them boldly, but then your next step is to go out and verify whether or not they are true. He does not take that crucial last step and that is what upset me.

I took a step back and thought about his misguided statements. He is writing an opinion off the evidence that he has. It might help for me to write to him, provide him with additional evidence and an alternative viewpoint. I searched for an email or print address and can't find one. This saddened me.

Standout essays from this collection:
Thanksgiving in Mongolia by Ariel Levy
Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li
Sliver of Sky by Barry Lopez
Joy by Zadie Smith
How to Make a Slave by Jerald Walker

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read The Best American Essays 2014 collection over the better part of a year, and so frankly I can't remember what I think about the collection as a whole. So as I'm writing this, I'm looking back over the table of contents and flipping through the Kindle version to see what resonates. I remember the first essay, Timothy Aubry's "A Matter of Life and Death." I don't remember the second essay, Wendy Brenner's "Strange Beads," but the only note I wrote in this section, apart from some highlighting, is this on the first page: "I wouldn't have written it this way." The third essay, "The Final Day in Rome" by John H. Culver is very very moving and heartbreaking. So far I got essays one and three for approval.

Other goodies: "At Sixty-Five" by Emily Fox Gordon, an amazing and deeply personal account of what it's like to be 65 years old from the inside; Leslie Jamison's "The Devil's Bait" is a great and sympathetic piece about Morgellons disease; "Thanksgiving in Mongolia" by Ariel Levy is an incredible story about a personal death almost so unbelievable and honest and open that I won't say what it is; "The Old Man at Burning Man" by Wells Tower is a story where the author takes his father to Burning Man. And Jerald Walker's "How to Make a Slave" is an essay worth reading.

So by my count, that's seven essays of 21 that are unforgettable. Of course, this reflects my taste, but I think one third of the collection being outstanding is good enough. If you'd be comfortable with that, maybe you too ought to read the collection. I for one like these collections because it's a good digest of a lot of good essays released annually.

[Ci · Rating 1 out of 5]

If this is the "best" collection from a year's production of our essayists of the whole country, then there may be legitimate reasons for despair. But I suspect the selection process is slanted with a particular subject-matter and style combination. It is painful to read this collection along with any of Montaigne's Essays. One's viewpoint shrunk to moldy dots of self-concerns --scabby, grubby, and even diseased -- and hence microscopic without illumination.

Abandoned at 25% reading marks.

*** Reading in-progress, notes

Introduction: useful to learn about Montaigne and King James in connection with the invention of "Essay" as a literary form.

"A matter of Life of Death": A thoughtful discussion about marriage being the escape of existential angst and discontent. Quoting Larkin "Now you become my boredom and my failure,/ Another way of suffering, a risk ..".

"Strange Beads": a messy collection of details went to nowhere.

"The final day in Rome": a simple story of death on a trip. Not much interiority nor feelings unconventional. Seems to be a travelogue.

"Letter from Williamsburg": a sordid account of egoist dressing for new age spiritualism.

"The man at the river": an account of cultural clashes of river crossing. Dry styled writing.

"At sixty-five": a lamentation of aging and its effect.

"On Being Introduced": amusing and anecdotals.

"Joy": the best of the lot so far. Zadie Smith may be worthy of reading.
(25% of the whole book. Point of abandoning reading).

[Biblio Files (takingadayoff) · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you read essays to learn about a new subject or to look at things in a different way, this may not be the collection for you. This year's Best American Essays are all about the individual, very inward looking. Death looms large, in essays about getting old or one's parents getting old, one about the death of a newborn, the sudden death of a wife, and suicide. The non-death related essays delve into child abuse and enemies.

There are a few essays that lighten the mood, somewhat. Wendy Brenner finds temporary relief from pain by shopping for costume jewelry on eBay, and Zadie Smith finds that life's small pleasures are more satisfying overall than the unsustainable highs of joy.

This year's guest editor, essayist John Jeremiah Sullivan, came to my attention a couple of years ago with an article about a family trip to Disney World. I read it, thought "What a jerk," and that was that. Except that I kept thinking about that darned essay and it finally dawned on me that it was pretty much the opposite of what I first thought it was. I read some more of his essays and found them challenging, surprising, and entertaining. His introductory essay in this collection is what appears to be a learned examination of the origin of the essay. It's pretentious and bloated. Is it a clever parody? Heck if I know.

My advice -- whether you decide to read this year Best American Essays or not, do read Sullivan's essay collection, Pulphead.