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The Best American Essays 2017
“They do what the essay form arguably does best: engaging the personal in order to reach larger themes . . . The essay form forces authors to take measure of themselves, and allows the reader to do so as well.” —Publishers Weekly
The best-selling essayist Leslie Jamison picks the best essays from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites, bringing her incredible ability to “stitch together the intellectual and the emotional with the finesse of a crackerjack surgeon” (NPR) to the task.
The best-selling essayist Leslie Jamison picks the best essays from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites, bringing her incredible ability to “stitch together the intellectual and the emotional with the finesse of a crackerjack surgeon” (NPR) to the task.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 3, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 90 reviews
December 28, 2017
I write essays professionally. So I gotta read "Best American Essays" every year as professional development. I feel the same about it most years: Some pieces are great. Some don't interest me. Usually depends a bit on the taste of the editor. But regardless, I usually average out at about 4 stars. Its more a guide to whom I should be reading in the future than a assessment of the book itself.
For this one, pay special attention to Editor Leslie Jamison's introduction, on why the essay matters in the age of Trump. Leslie Jamison is 35 and writes like she's already destined to be a legend. Eager to read her new memoir this spring.
For this one, pay special attention to Editor Leslie Jamison's introduction, on why the essay matters in the age of Trump. Leslie Jamison is 35 and writes like she's already destined to be a legend. Eager to read her new memoir this spring.
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May 13, 2021I'm in love with Leslie Jamison. I hope to teach her introduction to this collection someday in my own creative nonfiction class. And her taste—earnest, political, searching—pervades her curation. Her taste is my taste. Hard to even name standout essays, but I'm still haunted by Rachel Kushner's "'We Are Orphans Here.'" Greg Marshall's "If I Only Had a Leg" was charming. June Thunderstorm's "Revenge of the Mouthbreathers: A Smoker's Manifesto" was majorly provocative. Time travel back to 2016 (rough year), and bear witness all over again.
December 30, 2019
A great edition--wide diversity--not too New York focused like others editions sometimes are. I teach this edition b/c of the quality.
November 22, 2017
Not a very exciting selection. I found one piece that was powerfully moving and innovative in form ("White Horse" by Eliese Colette Goldach), but other pieces were too academic, dry, or just not interesting or captivating. Kudos to Jamison, though, for not over-relying on New Yorker and Harper's for her selections.
December 8, 2017
Leslie Jamison wrote a timely, resonant intro to BAE 2017. She says that essays are, by definition, "committed to instability," "full of self-interrogation, suspicious of received narratives, and hospitable to contradiction" (xx). She describes this BAE volume's selections specifically as containing "the generative energy of refusal"—refusal to adhere to established notions, systems, structures, voicings.
While I didn't love all of Jamison's selections, I admired the range of perspectives and topics, and (this is much more common with women editors) the excellent showing of women authors—in fact, 12 of the 20 (60%!) included writers are women, which I believe is the highest percentage of any BAE.
According to my checkmark rating system (1 for good essays, 2 for great, 3 for mindblowing), this volume contains 10 pieces I'd return for:
1 Checkmark
Jason Arment's "Two Shallow Graves"
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah's "The Weight of James Arthur Baldwin" (also anthologized in The Fire This Time)
Alan Lightman's "What Came Before the Big Bang?"
Kenneth A. McClane's "Sparrow Needy"
Catherine Venable Moore's "The Book of the Dead"
Meghan O'Gieblyn's "Dispatch from Flyover Country"
Heather Sellers's "Haywire"
Andrea Stuart's "Travels in Pornland"
Alia Volz's "Snakebit"
2 Checkmarks
Wesley Morris's "Last Taboo"
While I didn't love all of Jamison's selections, I admired the range of perspectives and topics, and (this is much more common with women editors) the excellent showing of women authors—in fact, 12 of the 20 (60%!) included writers are women, which I believe is the highest percentage of any BAE.
According to my checkmark rating system (1 for good essays, 2 for great, 3 for mindblowing), this volume contains 10 pieces I'd return for:
1 Checkmark
Jason Arment's "Two Shallow Graves"
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah's "The Weight of James Arthur Baldwin" (also anthologized in The Fire This Time)
Alan Lightman's "What Came Before the Big Bang?"
Kenneth A. McClane's "Sparrow Needy"
Catherine Venable Moore's "The Book of the Dead"
Meghan O'Gieblyn's "Dispatch from Flyover Country"
Heather Sellers's "Haywire"
Andrea Stuart's "Travels in Pornland"
Alia Volz's "Snakebit"
2 Checkmarks
Wesley Morris's "Last Taboo"
October 28, 2017
A good selection on the whole, with "Sparrow Needy" by Kenneth A. McClane and "Snakebit" by Alia Volz especially standing out or making me think to look for more by the authors.
December 8, 2018
The essays are diverse which I find appealing and the editor didn't just head to Vanity Fair and the New Yorker for fodder, but overall I found the collection underwhelming.
December 3, 2021
There really isn't anything more reliably filled with good writing than these Best American volumes. I'm a couple of years behind in the reading of them at the moment, but I always buy the Essays, the Short Stories, and recently added the Science Fiction & Fantasy volumes. Sometimes I add the Non-Required Reading, which can be a hoot.
I found this particular volume to be a bit harder to work through than previous ones, and that's due entirely to the subject matter, not the quality of the writing. There was also an almost universal approach to voice in this one (all of the pieces are really first person), which I hadn't noticed so clearly before. (I shall have to pay attention in the upcoming volumes.) There are two interesting "exceptions" to the first-personage of these pieces. Eliese Colette Goldbach's "White Horse" is written in third person, with herself as the protagonist, as it were. Since it's about her being raped, that detached choice is logical and interesting. Sarah Resnick's "H." is second person, but it's Sarah writing to her uncle, so, yeah, it's an intriguing version of first.
The "Smoker's Manifesto" is first person plural, as manifestos tend to be. It's also an outright satire, which was refreshing.
I marked seven of the pieces for special approval:
• Rachel Kushner's "We Are Orphans Here" - about a lawless Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem
• Emily Maloney's "Cost of Living" - about the cost of attempted suicide in health insurance terms, if you don't have much insurance
• Greg Marshall's "If I Only Had a Leg" - about cerebral palsy
• Kenneth A McClane's "Sparrow Needy" - about an alcoholic brother, which kept reminding me of "A River Runs Through It"
• Catherine Venable Moore's "The Book of the Dead" - an investigation into the victims of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster
• Christopher Notarnicola's "Indigent Disposition" which is in first person, but has an interesting formal-third-person level of rhetoric - addressing what happens to your body if nobody claims it...
• Heather Sellers's "Haywire" - about parental madness, weirdness, et al.
These essay collections have sometimes been rather grim in some years. There have been volumes loaded with dying parents, volumes loaded with child abuse, volumes loaded with hatred. This must be chance, in part; but must also reflect the guest editor's sense of what is important. I will admit that I found this volume relentlessly grim until near the end. (The rule seems to be that stories are always in alphabetical order by author, which makes for interesting successions.) The subject matters are: war and the killing of prisoners, racism, rape, racism and police killing, a Palestinian refugee camp and murder, astrophysics, suicide and hospital billing, cerebral palsy, poverty and trying to get to the U.S., yet more racism and an alcoholic sibling, racism and corporate murder, racism and penises, poverty-death-cremation, Mid-Western angst, spousal stalking and murders, addiction, toxic/insane parents, and porn. I did rather feel that the same buttons were being jabbed over and over. I found myself taking frequent breaks between reading sessions, and never read more than one essay at a sitting.
One running statistic that I keep track of when reading these: apparent gender of editor / apparent genders of authors. Editor: female Authors: 12 females, 8 males
I found this particular volume to be a bit harder to work through than previous ones, and that's due entirely to the subject matter, not the quality of the writing. There was also an almost universal approach to voice in this one (all of the pieces are really first person), which I hadn't noticed so clearly before. (I shall have to pay attention in the upcoming volumes.) There are two interesting "exceptions" to the first-personage of these pieces. Eliese Colette Goldbach's "White Horse" is written in third person, with herself as the protagonist, as it were. Since it's about her being raped, that detached choice is logical and interesting. Sarah Resnick's "H." is second person, but it's Sarah writing to her uncle, so, yeah, it's an intriguing version of first.
The "Smoker's Manifesto" is first person plural, as manifestos tend to be. It's also an outright satire, which was refreshing.
I marked seven of the pieces for special approval:
• Rachel Kushner's "We Are Orphans Here" - about a lawless Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem
• Emily Maloney's "Cost of Living" - about the cost of attempted suicide in health insurance terms, if you don't have much insurance
• Greg Marshall's "If I Only Had a Leg" - about cerebral palsy
• Kenneth A McClane's "Sparrow Needy" - about an alcoholic brother, which kept reminding me of "A River Runs Through It"
• Catherine Venable Moore's "The Book of the Dead" - an investigation into the victims of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster
• Christopher Notarnicola's "Indigent Disposition" which is in first person, but has an interesting formal-third-person level of rhetoric - addressing what happens to your body if nobody claims it...
• Heather Sellers's "Haywire" - about parental madness, weirdness, et al.
These essay collections have sometimes been rather grim in some years. There have been volumes loaded with dying parents, volumes loaded with child abuse, volumes loaded with hatred. This must be chance, in part; but must also reflect the guest editor's sense of what is important. I will admit that I found this volume relentlessly grim until near the end. (The rule seems to be that stories are always in alphabetical order by author, which makes for interesting successions.) The subject matters are: war and the killing of prisoners, racism, rape, racism and police killing, a Palestinian refugee camp and murder, astrophysics, suicide and hospital billing, cerebral palsy, poverty and trying to get to the U.S., yet more racism and an alcoholic sibling, racism and corporate murder, racism and penises, poverty-death-cremation, Mid-Western angst, spousal stalking and murders, addiction, toxic/insane parents, and porn. I did rather feel that the same buttons were being jabbed over and over. I found myself taking frequent breaks between reading sessions, and never read more than one essay at a sitting.
One running statistic that I keep track of when reading these: apparent gender of editor / apparent genders of authors. Editor: female Authors: 12 females, 8 males
August 24, 2019
Finished: 24.08.2019
Genre: essays
Rating: D-
#TBR list 2018
Conclusion:
Not the best collection I've ever read!
If you are looking for some great essays
...I've added some suggestions in this review.
My Thoughts
Genre: essays
Rating: D-
#TBR list 2018
Conclusion:
Not the best collection I've ever read!
If you are looking for some great essays
...I've added some suggestions in this review.
My Thoughts
May 12, 2018
Several brilliant lesser known women writers are featured in this edition, including Meghan O'Gieblyn, Eliese Colette Goldbach, and Sarah Resnick. Kenneth A. McClane's essay, Sparrow Needy, absolutely blew me away.
July 14, 2018
A mixed bag of essays. Some, like "Snakebit," "H," "Sparrow Needy," and "White Horse" were wonderfully written and incredibly gripping to read but others...not so much. I guess that's the issue with anthologies. But I have some new authors to add to my must-read pile and that's definitely a plus.
May 17, 2021
A solid and fairly diverse collection. I found most of them pretty interesting, with my favorites being White Horse (a woman with a past riddled by sexual assault struggles to remember a key moment of her childhood), If I Only Had a Leg (a boy with cerebral palsy and a love of showbiz meets the last remaining Munchkin actress from The Wizard of Oz), and Haywire (a woman reflects on her father's complex gender expression). A lot of the essays in this collection brought me new and interesting perspectives to issues that are relevant today, like U.S. healthcare, violence in cities, smoking bans, immigration, and black representation in media. I'll definitely pick up more of these Best American Essay collections if I see them around.
May 10, 2018
Lots of great writing, with diverse topics and authors, but I can never summon love for anthologies; they feel more like duty.
October 19, 2017
The political focus, while I understand it, left me a little disappointed. I read essays because they're largely personal in nature (yes yes, the personal is political etc.), and there can be a lot of diversity of topic and creativity in this Best American Series in particular. Not so much this time.
That said, I find myself returning to Jamison's introduction. It communicates what I love about the form so perfectly.
That said, I find myself returning to Jamison's introduction. It communicates what I love about the form so perfectly.
November 10, 2017
This was originally published at The Scrying Orb.
Bland. Forgettable. These are not engaging essays. At the midway point, the collection putters into its longest piece — The Book of the Dead — which I should like, given it explores the mining towns of West Virginia, the same topic as a great documentary I watched earlier this year. It was intolerable. I skipped the last several pages entirely. Things improved from there, but generally when picking this anthology up, I’m looking for a good deal more than half-good.
These essays focus heavily on politics. The type of politics that shouldn’t need to be political, like race and health care. This is nominally an improvement on past years, where I complained of far too many essays about intensely personal experiences involving dead parents. There is something tired about 2017. I suppose I’m looking for something exploratory or fresh and not the same litany of institutional misery I’m already reading everyday.
Anyway, my favorites:
Indigent Disposition by Christopher Notarnicola : A chilling 2nd person narrative account of how we reduce undesirable people to mere bodies. Especially those that are impoverished or in poor health. Notarnicola enumerates the laws pertaining to “indigent bodies” in a specific county in Florida, and the story of a man about to become a body (“you”) and his brother, a self-made lawnmower man. But mostly it’s an indictment of a country and people that simply lets the most vulnerable among them die. Then blames them for it to keep its collective conscious clear.
The Reader is the Protagonist by Karen Palmer : Initially the title refers to the classic children’s book There is a Monster at the End of this Book, where the reader is indeed the protagonist as they turn page after page while Sesame Street’s Grover begs them not to. Karen Palmer is reading this to her daughters in a temporary house in Boulder, Colorado after fleeing her abusive ex-husband with her new one. This leads to a staggering coincidence where Palmer gets a job interview at a mysterious publisher, who turns out to contract crime fiction writers to churn out kitschy texts like A Handbook for Hitmen. Skeeved out, Palmer leaves, only to discover several years later that a woman fleeing from her abusive ex-husband was murdered by his paid man. They found the publisher’s hitman handbook in his car.
What follows is a brief reflection, from both writer and reader on what should and should not be published. There’s no good answer.
H. by Sarah Resnick : Resnick’s uncle is a recovering heroin addict. She takes care of him, with occasional help from father, and about half of this long essay is about that difficult relationship. The other is exploring America’s inability, our outright refusal, to provide quality treatment for addicts. Resnick profiles a center in Vancouver, BC where addicts are free to enter and provided state assistance to get their fix: Clean tools, from needles to pill-crushers, a safe space and attendant nurses. Despite its proven efficacy as an avenue to get people clean, most other western nations continue to ignore data in favor of gut feel. Easier on the pride to let people die than let go of the rhetoric on personal responsibility and shame.
Bland. Forgettable. These are not engaging essays. At the midway point, the collection putters into its longest piece — The Book of the Dead — which I should like, given it explores the mining towns of West Virginia, the same topic as a great documentary I watched earlier this year. It was intolerable. I skipped the last several pages entirely. Things improved from there, but generally when picking this anthology up, I’m looking for a good deal more than half-good.
These essays focus heavily on politics. The type of politics that shouldn’t need to be political, like race and health care. This is nominally an improvement on past years, where I complained of far too many essays about intensely personal experiences involving dead parents. There is something tired about 2017. I suppose I’m looking for something exploratory or fresh and not the same litany of institutional misery I’m already reading everyday.
Anyway, my favorites:
Indigent Disposition by Christopher Notarnicola : A chilling 2nd person narrative account of how we reduce undesirable people to mere bodies. Especially those that are impoverished or in poor health. Notarnicola enumerates the laws pertaining to “indigent bodies” in a specific county in Florida, and the story of a man about to become a body (“you”) and his brother, a self-made lawnmower man. But mostly it’s an indictment of a country and people that simply lets the most vulnerable among them die. Then blames them for it to keep its collective conscious clear.
The Reader is the Protagonist by Karen Palmer : Initially the title refers to the classic children’s book There is a Monster at the End of this Book, where the reader is indeed the protagonist as they turn page after page while Sesame Street’s Grover begs them not to. Karen Palmer is reading this to her daughters in a temporary house in Boulder, Colorado after fleeing her abusive ex-husband with her new one. This leads to a staggering coincidence where Palmer gets a job interview at a mysterious publisher, who turns out to contract crime fiction writers to churn out kitschy texts like A Handbook for Hitmen. Skeeved out, Palmer leaves, only to discover several years later that a woman fleeing from her abusive ex-husband was murdered by his paid man. They found the publisher’s hitman handbook in his car.
What follows is a brief reflection, from both writer and reader on what should and should not be published. There’s no good answer.
H. by Sarah Resnick : Resnick’s uncle is a recovering heroin addict. She takes care of him, with occasional help from father, and about half of this long essay is about that difficult relationship. The other is exploring America’s inability, our outright refusal, to provide quality treatment for addicts. Resnick profiles a center in Vancouver, BC where addicts are free to enter and provided state assistance to get their fix: Clean tools, from needles to pill-crushers, a safe space and attendant nurses. Despite its proven efficacy as an avenue to get people clean, most other western nations continue to ignore data in favor of gut feel. Easier on the pride to let people die than let go of the rhetoric on personal responsibility and shame.
April 18, 2018
My favorites:
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah -- The Weight of James Arthur Baldwin
Eliese Collette Goldbach -- White Horse
Alan Lightman - What Came Before the Big Bang?
Catherine Venable Moore -- The Book of the Dead
Meghan O'Gieblyn -- Dispatch from Flyover Country
I respond to the essays that connect the personal and specific to a larger American story. That said, this is the one passage I highlighted during my reading. From What Came Before the Big Bang?:
Does space go on forever, to infinity? Or is it finite but without boundary or edge, like the surface of a sphere? Either answer is disturbing, and unfathomable. Where did we come from? We can follow the lives of our parents and grandparents and their parents backward in time, back and back through he generations, until we come to some ancestor ten thousand years in the past whose DNA remains in our body. We can follow the chain of being even further back in time to the first humans, and the first primates, and the one-celled amoebas swimming about in the primordial seas, and the formation of the atmosphere, and the slow condensation of gases to create Earth. It all happened, whether we think about it or not. We quickly realize how limited we are in our experience of the world. What we see and feel with our bodies, caught midway between atoms and galaxies, is but a small swath of the spectrum, a sliver of reality.
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah -- The Weight of James Arthur Baldwin
Eliese Collette Goldbach -- White Horse
Alan Lightman - What Came Before the Big Bang?
Catherine Venable Moore -- The Book of the Dead
Meghan O'Gieblyn -- Dispatch from Flyover Country
I respond to the essays that connect the personal and specific to a larger American story. That said, this is the one passage I highlighted during my reading. From What Came Before the Big Bang?:
Does space go on forever, to infinity? Or is it finite but without boundary or edge, like the surface of a sphere? Either answer is disturbing, and unfathomable. Where did we come from? We can follow the lives of our parents and grandparents and their parents backward in time, back and back through he generations, until we come to some ancestor ten thousand years in the past whose DNA remains in our body. We can follow the chain of being even further back in time to the first humans, and the first primates, and the one-celled amoebas swimming about in the primordial seas, and the formation of the atmosphere, and the slow condensation of gases to create Earth. It all happened, whether we think about it or not. We quickly realize how limited we are in our experience of the world. What we see and feel with our bodies, caught midway between atoms and galaxies, is but a small swath of the spectrum, a sliver of reality.
November 13, 2017
The best American essays are a hit or miss in my opinion. This book is made up of several small essays maybe 10 pages each and the quality deeply depends on the author, I believe it was the third essay that I completely skipped because I was so uninterested but then you get to the fourth essay about a women's experience with rape, that was absolutely phenomenal, I could not take my eyes of the page, but that work was pressed with a essay from buzz-feed witch overall was fine, but it was from buzz-feed which is not where I would go for exceptional essays. I will say there are some amazing gem's in this book, theirs one essay about a boy with a gimp leg and his experiences growing up that was light in tone and absolutely entertaining, then I continue to read the next essay about a kid in Africa trying to go to college and that was also phenomenal but it was a follow up to a essay that had a completely different tone and style and that was quite jarring. I know if I took a day or two between essays I would not have this problem at all but the problem is, I wanna keep reading!
Do I recommend this book? well it all depends on the person, if your someone who can read a couple sub-par essays to get to the gems, or you can adjust for tone changes easily then I recommended whole hardily. everyone else see if you can borrow the book for a day or two and just read the good essays.
Do I recommend this book? well it all depends on the person, if your someone who can read a couple sub-par essays to get to the gems, or you can adjust for tone changes easily then I recommended whole hardily. everyone else see if you can borrow the book for a day or two and just read the good essays.
March 5, 2018
Maybe I'm just in a bad mood but dear god most of these were so boring.
December 24, 2017
I read BAE every year, and Leslie Jamison's selections were the strongest since David Foster Wallace in 2007.
May 15, 2019
It’s not you, it’s me: I confess that my mixed reaction to this annual collection is likely far more negative than its contents warrant.
Many of these pieces resist definition or easy conclusions — a quality that most literary essays aspire to. But the effort at grounding the intensely personal in the real world requires more than passion and elevated language. It takes craft. Many simply fall well wide of the mark.
Take “The Weight of James Arthur Baldwin,” by Rachel Ghansah. The hook is a promising one: a visit to Baldwin’s long-time residence in France for a meditation of Baldwin in the contemporary world. But Ghansah flails, unable to shape her deep feelings about Baldwin and legacy of American racism into any coherent narrative or point of view. The visit to the Baldwin house is fleeting, and god forbid that she should conduct any reportage on his life and times there. Not even a single description of one of Baldwin’s parties there? Ghansah is a young, ambitious, and obviously talented writer; perhaps she can revisit Baldwin in the future. Right now, he has defeated her.
Christopher Notarnicola’s “Indigent Disposition” has an intriguing subject as well: the disposition of indigent bodies in Broward County, Florida. But he smothers his subject with self-indulgent prose, and most fatally, the decision to write in the present tense. (“The indigent body of Jonathan Weiker speaks softly. Softer, I think, than looks allow.”) May I softly suggest that Mr. Notarnicola honor the dead and never write such a sentence again?
June Thunderstorm adopts a hilarious ‘kill-the-bourgeoisie” tone for her essay, “Revenge of the Mouthbreathers: A Smoker’s Manifesto,” which is, believe it or not, an all-out attack on the public health campaign against smoking. It’s a sneering, politically incorrect message — antismoking is simply class warfare against the poor — so over the top that you can’t help but laugh at loud. Except I don’t think Ms. Thunderstorm is kidding.
Her writing is vivid enough — a woman charges toward a miscreant smoker “brandishing the Mercedes-Benz of strollers” — but she doesn’t seem self-aware enough to appreciate her own inadvertent humor. The poor may continue to smoke because they have lousy jobs and lousy lives, but even a diatribe against political correctness might make some acknowledgment of the lives saved by one or the nation’s most successful public health campaigns.
Are there gems in this collection? Of course. “Two Shallow Graves,” about Marines in Iraq, and “White Horse,” a meditation on rape and its aftermath, are powerful and unforgettable, if unrelentingly grim.
Even better, as a balance of reportage and personal essay, is the heartbreaking “”We Are Orphans Here’” by Rachael Kushner, author of the novel The Flamethrowers. Kushner takes us inside the ominous but resilient world of the Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem, a political no-man’s land partly administered by UN relief agencies while being policed, but not protected, by the Israeli army. Kushner employs unstated and factual prose to depict life in the camp and to portray one of its heroes, Palestinian community organizer Baha Nababta, who is called upon to cope with political and human dilemmas that are simply insoluble.
In the essay “H.,” Sarah Resnick also weaves the personal and political in a sprawling account of the nation’s drug crisis through the use of the second person “you.” It’s a valiant attempt, but it lacks the focus and balance that Kushner is able to bring to “Orphans.”
Essays can be a license for freedom in subject matter and style. Yet that same freedom can cause even capable writers to stumble and fall.
Many of these pieces resist definition or easy conclusions — a quality that most literary essays aspire to. But the effort at grounding the intensely personal in the real world requires more than passion and elevated language. It takes craft. Many simply fall well wide of the mark.
Take “The Weight of James Arthur Baldwin,” by Rachel Ghansah. The hook is a promising one: a visit to Baldwin’s long-time residence in France for a meditation of Baldwin in the contemporary world. But Ghansah flails, unable to shape her deep feelings about Baldwin and legacy of American racism into any coherent narrative or point of view. The visit to the Baldwin house is fleeting, and god forbid that she should conduct any reportage on his life and times there. Not even a single description of one of Baldwin’s parties there? Ghansah is a young, ambitious, and obviously talented writer; perhaps she can revisit Baldwin in the future. Right now, he has defeated her.
Christopher Notarnicola’s “Indigent Disposition” has an intriguing subject as well: the disposition of indigent bodies in Broward County, Florida. But he smothers his subject with self-indulgent prose, and most fatally, the decision to write in the present tense. (“The indigent body of Jonathan Weiker speaks softly. Softer, I think, than looks allow.”) May I softly suggest that Mr. Notarnicola honor the dead and never write such a sentence again?
June Thunderstorm adopts a hilarious ‘kill-the-bourgeoisie” tone for her essay, “Revenge of the Mouthbreathers: A Smoker’s Manifesto,” which is, believe it or not, an all-out attack on the public health campaign against smoking. It’s a sneering, politically incorrect message — antismoking is simply class warfare against the poor — so over the top that you can’t help but laugh at loud. Except I don’t think Ms. Thunderstorm is kidding.
Her writing is vivid enough — a woman charges toward a miscreant smoker “brandishing the Mercedes-Benz of strollers” — but she doesn’t seem self-aware enough to appreciate her own inadvertent humor. The poor may continue to smoke because they have lousy jobs and lousy lives, but even a diatribe against political correctness might make some acknowledgment of the lives saved by one or the nation’s most successful public health campaigns.
Are there gems in this collection? Of course. “Two Shallow Graves,” about Marines in Iraq, and “White Horse,” a meditation on rape and its aftermath, are powerful and unforgettable, if unrelentingly grim.
Even better, as a balance of reportage and personal essay, is the heartbreaking “”We Are Orphans Here’” by Rachael Kushner, author of the novel The Flamethrowers. Kushner takes us inside the ominous but resilient world of the Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem, a political no-man’s land partly administered by UN relief agencies while being policed, but not protected, by the Israeli army. Kushner employs unstated and factual prose to depict life in the camp and to portray one of its heroes, Palestinian community organizer Baha Nababta, who is called upon to cope with political and human dilemmas that are simply insoluble.
In the essay “H.,” Sarah Resnick also weaves the personal and political in a sprawling account of the nation’s drug crisis through the use of the second person “you.” It’s a valiant attempt, but it lacks the focus and balance that Kushner is able to bring to “Orphans.”
Essays can be a license for freedom in subject matter and style. Yet that same freedom can cause even capable writers to stumble and fall.
April 29, 2018
Essay - from the French word essayer, to try - p. xviii
"The essay inherently stages an encounter between and 'I' and the world in which that 'I' resides...it doesn't just describe these relations [between people in a society]. It unsettles them. It models a certain way of paying attention: awestruck and humble and suspicious all at once, taking as premise-as promise-the limits of its own vision." p. xx
"Particularity is the native tongue of the essay...and particularity isn't just an aesthetic code (be vivid!) but an ethical imperative that reads more like an invitation: Approach the sinkhole. Look closer. Get dizzy. Every human life is infinite. You will never know the half of it. Here's a half, and then another half, and then another half, that's three-there's more! No life is a thesis statement. No life is as simple as a threat. Everyone hurts about something. Everyone has feelings about breakfast. Every person is a fucking miracle. These statements might not sound political, but if you really believe them they make political demands. Essays take the political and make it something that lives in a body, that needs to sleep and stay hydrated, that might - for example - drink water as hot as a locker-room shower twenty klicks north of Fallujah." p. xxi
"This is the prerogative of the essay: as it witnesses, it investigates the terms and fragility of its own gaze." p. xxiii
"...helps bring us close to that humanity for a moment - from an oblique angle we wouldn't have expected, an angle we couldn't imagine for ourselves. What we can't imagine for ourselves. That's why we need to see the world - for a spell - through someone else's eyes." p. xxiv
Quoting James Baldwin: "It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death-ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life." p. 24
Sarah Resnick quoting Carl Hart in her essay "H." about drug addiction - "Abstinence is not just a model you can force on everybody. There's nothing wrong with it for those for whom it works. But when it comes to drug treatment there's an assumption that one size fits all. And if you're going to wash your hands of people who can't go the abstinence route, then you're giving up...You're not treating the addiction [with harm reduction approaches]. You're not intending to. You're just reducing the harm." p. 226
Andrea Stuart's essay about pornography from a feminist perspective: "...a woman can only be sexually free if she is also in control of the means of production." p. 265
June Thunderstorm's essay about smokers in America: "Now, in 2016, cigarette smoking is indeed more common among people living in poverty. They smoke because they do not have the time or money to eat properly, because other, more respectable mind-altering drugs are not available to them, because it is something to enjoy. They do it because their jobs (when they still exist) are so boring and physically painful they would rather die..." p. 270
"The essay inherently stages an encounter between and 'I' and the world in which that 'I' resides...it doesn't just describe these relations [between people in a society]. It unsettles them. It models a certain way of paying attention: awestruck and humble and suspicious all at once, taking as premise-as promise-the limits of its own vision." p. xx
"Particularity is the native tongue of the essay...and particularity isn't just an aesthetic code (be vivid!) but an ethical imperative that reads more like an invitation: Approach the sinkhole. Look closer. Get dizzy. Every human life is infinite. You will never know the half of it. Here's a half, and then another half, and then another half, that's three-there's more! No life is a thesis statement. No life is as simple as a threat. Everyone hurts about something. Everyone has feelings about breakfast. Every person is a fucking miracle. These statements might not sound political, but if you really believe them they make political demands. Essays take the political and make it something that lives in a body, that needs to sleep and stay hydrated, that might - for example - drink water as hot as a locker-room shower twenty klicks north of Fallujah." p. xxi
"This is the prerogative of the essay: as it witnesses, it investigates the terms and fragility of its own gaze." p. xxiii
"...helps bring us close to that humanity for a moment - from an oblique angle we wouldn't have expected, an angle we couldn't imagine for ourselves. What we can't imagine for ourselves. That's why we need to see the world - for a spell - through someone else's eyes." p. xxiv
Quoting James Baldwin: "It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death-ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life." p. 24
Sarah Resnick quoting Carl Hart in her essay "H." about drug addiction - "Abstinence is not just a model you can force on everybody. There's nothing wrong with it for those for whom it works. But when it comes to drug treatment there's an assumption that one size fits all. And if you're going to wash your hands of people who can't go the abstinence route, then you're giving up...You're not treating the addiction [with harm reduction approaches]. You're not intending to. You're just reducing the harm." p. 226
Andrea Stuart's essay about pornography from a feminist perspective: "...a woman can only be sexually free if she is also in control of the means of production." p. 265
June Thunderstorm's essay about smokers in America: "Now, in 2016, cigarette smoking is indeed more common among people living in poverty. They smoke because they do not have the time or money to eat properly, because other, more respectable mind-altering drugs are not available to them, because it is something to enjoy. They do it because their jobs (when they still exist) are so boring and physically painful they would rather die..." p. 270
October 22, 2018
This was my first time reading a collection of essays by different people. I've read essays before, but ones that were written by one person, perhaps all centered on a particular topic. So this was new to me. Here are my thoughts on the subject:
I'm not really sure what the definition of an essay is, because based on the wide variety that is in this book, it seems like essays can be anything - thoughts on a subject of interest, personal stories, thoughts on a specific person (famous or not). When I had to write essays in school, they were a far cry from this, so I didn't really know what to expect with each new essay.
What I can say is, when I read reviews of other essays collections, Roxane Gay's, for example, I saw a lot of people complain about a lack of argument or break down of a topic into an argument. Now having read this collection (of the supposedly BEST essays in 2017) I can say that most essays do not make it clear what the argument is. In fact, most just seem to be a discussion, with the author's personal thoughts about the subject. So I think most people have the same problem as me and don't really know what an essay is (outside of a school context).
That being said, I enjoyed a lot of the essays in this book. Jamison did an excellent job of choosing a wide range of subjects and authors, whose topics were all over the map, including racism, abuse, addiction, and grief. Some of my favorites were "White Horse," "The Cost of Living," "If I Only Had a Leg," and "The Reader Is the Protagonist." These stories really drew me in and showed fascinating glimpses into the lives of people competently different from me.
There were others I hated, that were either hard to follow or else the subject matter didn't appeal to me or I just didn't enjoy reading it. It was quite an eclectic bunch, so their were bound to be essays I didn't care for.
I'm glad I read this book. It was a challenge to my general reading, I had to focus, there were layers happening and I wanted to catch the author's meaning because these were crafted bits of writing, they were trying to do something other than just tell a story.
I would recommend this or other collections in this series to those who enjoy slice of life narratives. They may be essays, but they are also stories, and you get very close to the author, they're showing you their brain working through something very intimately.
I am counting this as my "Essay Anthology," for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge 2018.
I'm not really sure what the definition of an essay is, because based on the wide variety that is in this book, it seems like essays can be anything - thoughts on a subject of interest, personal stories, thoughts on a specific person (famous or not). When I had to write essays in school, they were a far cry from this, so I didn't really know what to expect with each new essay.
What I can say is, when I read reviews of other essays collections, Roxane Gay's, for example, I saw a lot of people complain about a lack of argument or break down of a topic into an argument. Now having read this collection (of the supposedly BEST essays in 2017) I can say that most essays do not make it clear what the argument is. In fact, most just seem to be a discussion, with the author's personal thoughts about the subject. So I think most people have the same problem as me and don't really know what an essay is (outside of a school context).
That being said, I enjoyed a lot of the essays in this book. Jamison did an excellent job of choosing a wide range of subjects and authors, whose topics were all over the map, including racism, abuse, addiction, and grief. Some of my favorites were "White Horse," "The Cost of Living," "If I Only Had a Leg," and "The Reader Is the Protagonist." These stories really drew me in and showed fascinating glimpses into the lives of people competently different from me.
There were others I hated, that were either hard to follow or else the subject matter didn't appeal to me or I just didn't enjoy reading it. It was quite an eclectic bunch, so their were bound to be essays I didn't care for.
I'm glad I read this book. It was a challenge to my general reading, I had to focus, there were layers happening and I wanted to catch the author's meaning because these were crafted bits of writing, they were trying to do something other than just tell a story.
I would recommend this or other collections in this series to those who enjoy slice of life narratives. They may be essays, but they are also stories, and you get very close to the author, they're showing you their brain working through something very intimately.
I am counting this as my "Essay Anthology," for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge 2018.
September 26, 2018
First I want to say I never read anything like this before, except maybe in school decades ago. I do remember having to take essay tests or write the answer as an essay. Anyway, I decided to stretch my comfort zone and read something "different". My dictionary, though it's old, defines an essay as a "analysis or personal opinion on a subject of general interest."
That sounded pretty good...
This contains 20 essays, of varying lengths. The foreword was boring, as well as the intro. I almost nodded off. Half of the essays in this book were either depressing or disturbing to me, really hard to read. I had to pace myself through those, reading half at a time....even if "only" 20 pages. Here are examples of some of the subjects: War, rape, refugee camp, science/physics, police brutality/race relations and the porn industry.
I read 5 essays before I came across one I FINALLY sort of liked at least. So after that, I kept going because I wanted to see if there's anymore that I like. So I almost gave up on it, but it is rated so highly on here I struggled through. But it was tempting to give up since nobody is forcing me to read that...like in school. :-(
The one about the Big Bang Theory (physics theory, not the sit-com LOL) was kind of interesting but too scientific for a lay person to understand, too much technical jargon. That was the 6th one. After that, I ended up liking 9 essays: Cost of Living, If I Only Had a Leg, Indigent Disposition, Dispatch from Flyover Country, The Reader is the Protagonist, H, Haywire, Revenge of the Mouthbreakers: A Smoker's Manifesto (even though I'm a non-smoker!), and Snakebit (even though I'm afraid of snakes!).
The rest of them had me checking to see how many pages it was and whether to read it all at once or a bit at a time. Sometimes I would think "Gosh is this almost at the end?" And if so, I'd think "Almost done, thankfully."
I wish the beginning of each essay had a reminder of what it's ABOUT. The foreword does describe SOME of them but not all of them. And because it was so long and boring, I didn't retain any of what I read. So I forgot what the essays were about. In some cases, I got a rude awakening...
I'm all for thought provoking, analytical essays but why not on more uplifting subjects??? I'm sure they exist! Do NOT read this if you're depressed or in a bad mood. Some of them were like watching the news, which is mostly bad news.
20 page essays were too long for me, and this is coming from someone who can enjoy a NOVEL of 500+ pages, LOL! Most of them were like reading a diary or journal of personal, traumatic experience. I didn't see where the analysis/opinion of a topic came into play, for the most part.
So 2 stars it is, because I liked almost half of them. I was sure it was going to be 1 star, or I wouldn't finish it. This is definitely not escapist or pleasure reading. From now on, I'm sticking to my novels or short stories. I've stretched my reading comfort zone enough for now! It was kind of like school when they made us read or write essays.
That sounded pretty good...
This contains 20 essays, of varying lengths. The foreword was boring, as well as the intro. I almost nodded off. Half of the essays in this book were either depressing or disturbing to me, really hard to read. I had to pace myself through those, reading half at a time....even if "only" 20 pages. Here are examples of some of the subjects: War, rape, refugee camp, science/physics, police brutality/race relations and the porn industry.
I read 5 essays before I came across one I FINALLY sort of liked at least. So after that, I kept going because I wanted to see if there's anymore that I like. So I almost gave up on it, but it is rated so highly on here I struggled through. But it was tempting to give up since nobody is forcing me to read that...like in school. :-(
The one about the Big Bang Theory (physics theory, not the sit-com LOL) was kind of interesting but too scientific for a lay person to understand, too much technical jargon. That was the 6th one. After that, I ended up liking 9 essays: Cost of Living, If I Only Had a Leg, Indigent Disposition, Dispatch from Flyover Country, The Reader is the Protagonist, H, Haywire, Revenge of the Mouthbreakers: A Smoker's Manifesto (even though I'm a non-smoker!), and Snakebit (even though I'm afraid of snakes!).
The rest of them had me checking to see how many pages it was and whether to read it all at once or a bit at a time. Sometimes I would think "Gosh is this almost at the end?" And if so, I'd think "Almost done, thankfully."
I wish the beginning of each essay had a reminder of what it's ABOUT. The foreword does describe SOME of them but not all of them. And because it was so long and boring, I didn't retain any of what I read. So I forgot what the essays were about. In some cases, I got a rude awakening...
I'm all for thought provoking, analytical essays but why not on more uplifting subjects??? I'm sure they exist! Do NOT read this if you're depressed or in a bad mood. Some of them were like watching the news, which is mostly bad news.
20 page essays were too long for me, and this is coming from someone who can enjoy a NOVEL of 500+ pages, LOL! Most of them were like reading a diary or journal of personal, traumatic experience. I didn't see where the analysis/opinion of a topic came into play, for the most part.
So 2 stars it is, because I liked almost half of them. I was sure it was going to be 1 star, or I wouldn't finish it. This is definitely not escapist or pleasure reading. From now on, I'm sticking to my novels or short stories. I've stretched my reading comfort zone enough for now! It was kind of like school when they made us read or write essays.
June 5, 2019
Standouts:
*White Horse: Eliese Colette Goldbach weaves together her brutal rape as a young woman with her childhood view of sexuality, posing the question whether she was victimized as an adult because she was previously abused.
*We Are Orphans Here: Rachel Kushner visits the walled-in Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem, meeting the unofficial mayor prior to his murder.
*What Came Before the Big Bang: A mind-blowing exploration of theories of the beginning of the universe, including the idea that the dense particle that contained all of matter could have appeared from nothing, which would mean that all of our established facts regarding time and matter could be just mere perceptions not yet disproved. (Alan Lightman)
*Cost of Living: Emily Maloney works as an ER tech, undercharging people because of her sympathy for them following her own expensive suicide attempt.
*If I Only Had a Leg: Greg Marshall aspires to grow up to be an actor, but others’ view of his cerebral palsy relegates him to bit parts in the background.
*Last Taboo: Wesley Morris points out how the black penis is still hypersexualized and either seen as dangerous or reduced to a joke.
*Haywire: Heather Sellers remembers leaving the home of her paranoid mother to live with her mentally ill, alcoholic father who wore women’s clothes and watched porn at the dining table.
*White Horse: Eliese Colette Goldbach weaves together her brutal rape as a young woman with her childhood view of sexuality, posing the question whether she was victimized as an adult because she was previously abused.
*We Are Orphans Here: Rachel Kushner visits the walled-in Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem, meeting the unofficial mayor prior to his murder.
*What Came Before the Big Bang: A mind-blowing exploration of theories of the beginning of the universe, including the idea that the dense particle that contained all of matter could have appeared from nothing, which would mean that all of our established facts regarding time and matter could be just mere perceptions not yet disproved. (Alan Lightman)
*Cost of Living: Emily Maloney works as an ER tech, undercharging people because of her sympathy for them following her own expensive suicide attempt.
*If I Only Had a Leg: Greg Marshall aspires to grow up to be an actor, but others’ view of his cerebral palsy relegates him to bit parts in the background.
*Last Taboo: Wesley Morris points out how the black penis is still hypersexualized and either seen as dangerous or reduced to a joke.
*Haywire: Heather Sellers remembers leaving the home of her paranoid mother to live with her mentally ill, alcoholic father who wore women’s clothes and watched porn at the dining table.
February 6, 2018
The essays selected by editor Leslie Jamison in this 2017 edition of a great series seem connected by just one feature - they are personal tales of traumatic experiences. I remember when an essay had to do more than express what it was like to "be there."
While many of the essays were not interesting to me due to the topic or writing style, there were still many that I found to be excellent. These included:
Alan Lightman's "What Came Before the Big Bang"
Emily Maloney's "Cost of Living" - a moving and informative piece about the skyrocketing cost of health care
Rachel Kushner's "We are Orphans here" - a moving and intense description of the Shaft Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem
Meghan O'Gieblyn's "Dispatch from Flyover Country" - a sad description of people in Muskegon Michigan living in poverty and depression
Sarah Resnick's "H" - a very personal exploration of the effects of heroin on some of her family members
Overall, this edition did not live up to my expectations.
While many of the essays were not interesting to me due to the topic or writing style, there were still many that I found to be excellent. These included:
Alan Lightman's "What Came Before the Big Bang"
Emily Maloney's "Cost of Living" - a moving and informative piece about the skyrocketing cost of health care
Rachel Kushner's "We are Orphans here" - a moving and intense description of the Shaft Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem
Meghan O'Gieblyn's "Dispatch from Flyover Country" - a sad description of people in Muskegon Michigan living in poverty and depression
Sarah Resnick's "H" - a very personal exploration of the effects of heroin on some of her family members
Overall, this edition did not live up to my expectations.
June 3, 2018
Another very good collection of essays, this series is reliably good. I do, however, have to wonder how Revenge of the Mouthbreathers: A Smoker's Manifesto made it in. Many essays, of course, seek to persuade or make a point. Generally what I find in this series are ones that do that in a balanced, nonjudgmental way (also the way has the greatest chance of actually swaying a reader). Not so with this strident rant of an essay, which claimed that antismoking legislation and advertising was nothing but a class war, yet another attack on the working class by the "ruling elites". Sound familiar? I have strong opinions on smoking and so take that into account, but it is a proven health issue, and certainly one of courtesy to others. That is true no matter what category or us vs. them "class" someones feels the need to place a person in. Such arguments are not helpful, and only strengthen the national divide we live today.
December 26, 2018
The essays cover a wide range of topics: black sexuality in film, rape, feminist porn, the big bang, phobias, safe-injection sites, cross-dressing, anti-smoking legislation and haughty coastal city residents. Some favourite lines:
"Sometimes we fool ourselves into believing that we've outsmarted the system, that we've harnessed the plucky spirit of those DIY blogs that applaud young couples for turning a toolshed or a teardrop camper into a studio apartment, as though economic instability were the great crucible of American creativity"
"I sensed that I needed to lay down all new wiring in my body and mind so I could choose whom to let in, and whom to keep at bay. I sensed this renovation had to occur at the cellular level and would take many years. Didn't we get all new cells every seven years?"
"Nobody ever goes broke overestimating the rage and misogyny of the average American male" (DFW reference)
"Sometimes we fool ourselves into believing that we've outsmarted the system, that we've harnessed the plucky spirit of those DIY blogs that applaud young couples for turning a toolshed or a teardrop camper into a studio apartment, as though economic instability were the great crucible of American creativity"
"I sensed that I needed to lay down all new wiring in my body and mind so I could choose whom to let in, and whom to keep at bay. I sensed this renovation had to occur at the cellular level and would take many years. Didn't we get all new cells every seven years?"
"Nobody ever goes broke overestimating the rage and misogyny of the average American male" (DFW reference)
November 28, 2018
I had to read a book of essays for a reading challenge this year, and I took the road more lazy. I liked Leslie Jamison's "The Empathy Exams" and loved "The Recovering" and for those reasons, decided to trust her curating skills. This group of essays does not disappoint.
You can find most of them online. My favorites are:
The Weight of James Arthur Baldwin, Rachel Khaadzi Ghansah
We Are Orphans Here, Rachel Kushner
What Came Before the Big Bang, Alan Lightman
The Book of the Dead, Catherine Venable Moore
Maybe the most thrilling was the Lightman essay. I always love it when people who understand physics and the universe dumb it down for me and/or give credence to my personal "we might all just be living on a pimple on the butt of a giant" theory. This does both of these things! They're all good though.
You can find most of them online. My favorites are:
The Weight of James Arthur Baldwin, Rachel Khaadzi Ghansah
We Are Orphans Here, Rachel Kushner
What Came Before the Big Bang, Alan Lightman
The Book of the Dead, Catherine Venable Moore
Maybe the most thrilling was the Lightman essay. I always love it when people who understand physics and the universe dumb it down for me and/or give credence to my personal "we might all just be living on a pimple on the butt of a giant" theory. This does both of these things! They're all good though.
January 10, 2018
With a few exceptions, not as good as other years. Enjoyed "If I Only Had a Leg," by Greg Marshall, "Working the City" by Bernard Farai Matambo, "Dispatch from Flyover Country," by Meghan O' Gieblyn and "H." by Sarah Resnick. The others ranged from "meh" to outright awful.
I took off a star thanks to the pathetic, whiny introduction by editor Leslie Jamison. It's a full-on temper tantrum about the election, and she tries, but fails (hard) to connect it to the art of the essay. Maybe a better writer could have made that connection, but I couldn't get past her hysterics. I am politically independent and loathe both sides equally, so this isn't based on some personal bias.
Anyway, some good gems in there, but overall a disappointment.
I took off a star thanks to the pathetic, whiny introduction by editor Leslie Jamison. It's a full-on temper tantrum about the election, and she tries, but fails (hard) to connect it to the art of the essay. Maybe a better writer could have made that connection, but I couldn't get past her hysterics. I am politically independent and loathe both sides equally, so this isn't based on some personal bias.
Anyway, some good gems in there, but overall a disappointment.
June 27, 2019
I always forget how much I love essays until I read another of these "The Best American" compilations. This one sat on my shelf for a while but once again, when I sunk my teeth in it was utterly satisfying.
For me the essay holds such a power to convey knowledge through narrative. In every compilation I realize how much I learn through these writers lives. The essay, or at least the ones in this book, are deeply personal and intimate but deal with mighty and world altering subjects. Each voice, each topic, each structure unique. They draw me in and usually leaving me wanting more, but knowing the essayist has given all they have already.
The essay is a fascinating genre through which my life and reading has be enriched.
For me the essay holds such a power to convey knowledge through narrative. In every compilation I realize how much I learn through these writers lives. The essay, or at least the ones in this book, are deeply personal and intimate but deal with mighty and world altering subjects. Each voice, each topic, each structure unique. They draw me in and usually leaving me wanting more, but knowing the essayist has given all they have already.
The essay is a fascinating genre through which my life and reading has be enriched.
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