Norain’s Reviews > The Norton Book of Personal Essays > Status Update

Amy Tan - Mother Tan: I like Amy Tan.

Shelby Steele - On Being Black and Middle Class: The author wrote about how being black was a contradiction to being middle class, and to be black was to be a victim.

"To move beyond the victim-focused black identity we must learn to make a difficult but crucial distinction: between actual victimization, which we must resist with every resource, and identification with the victim's status."

Vicki Hearne - Oyez a Beaumont: The author is clearly pissed off at the writer of an article, for suggesting that all pets are replaceable and if your dog die, you should buy another one, same breed, right away.

Barry Lopez - Grown Men: Again, death. The author talked about three men who were like grandfathers to him, and who had taught him things. Their passing, he felt, was a great loss to the world.

Scott Russell Sanders - The Inheritance of Tools: Following his father's death, from whom he learned carpentry, the author reminisced about the tools he double inherited from his grandfather.

Annie Dillard - Weasel: Apparently, a man shot an eagle and when he examined its corpse, there was the skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to its throat. Bite like a weasel, and never let go, should be a saying.

Richard Rodriquez - Going Home Again: To be an ethnic with Western education and thus, Western mind

Nancy Mairs - Ron Her Son: Mairs and her husband fostered Ron - first he stayed with them only on weekends, but after his father rejected him, they took him in full time. The three years he was with them was difficult. But Ron joined the Navy and he seemed to have turned out fine. The essay takes place during their reunion, so it didn't mention that Ron was later fatally shot in the head, his killer still at large.

Phyllis Rose - Tools of Torture: An Essay on Beauty and Pain

Bruce Chatwin - The Bey: The Bey was an elderly and anachronistic man, a remnant of the Ottoman Empire, whom Chatwin got acquainted with while working as a porter at the Sotheby's.