The best American essays 2020

Book Cover
Average Rating
Publisher
Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date
©2020.
Language
English

Description

A collection of the year’s best essays selected by André Aciman, author of the worldwide bestseller Call Me by Your Name. “An essay is the child of uncertainty,” André Aciman contends in his introduction to The Best American Essays 2020. “The struggle to write what one hopes is entirely true, and the long incubation every piece of writing requires of a writer who is thinking difficult thoughts, are what ultimately give the writing its depth, its magnitude, its grace.” The essays Aciman selected center on people facing moments of deep uncertainty, searching for a greater truth. From a Black father’s confrontation of his son’s illness, to a divorcée’s transcendent experience with strangers, to a bartender grieving the tragic loss of a friend, these stories are a master class not just in essay writing but in empathy, artfully imbuing moments of hardship with understanding and that elusive grace.  The Best American 2020 Essays includes  RABIH ALAMEDDINE • BARBARA EHRENREICH • LESLIE JAMISON JAMAICA KINCAID • ALEX MARZANO-LESNEVICH • A. O. SCOTT • JERALD WALKER • STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS and others   

Table of Contents

From the Book

How to bartend / Rabih Alameddine --
Ghost museum / Elvis Bego --
Driving as metaphor / Rachel Cusk --
The humanoid stain / Barbara Ehrenreich --
After the three-moon era / Gary Fincke --
Cosmic latte / Ron Huett --
A street full of splendid strangers / Leslie Jamison --
A letter to Robinson Crusoe / Jamaica Kincaid --
Maly Trostinets / Joseph Leo Koerner --
Body language / Alex Marzano-Lesnevich --
A thing about cancer / Clinton Crockett Peters --
The other Leopold / Susan Fox Rogers --
To grieve is to carry another time / Matthew Salesses --
77 Sunset me / Peter Schjeldahl --
Under the sign of Susan / A. O. Scott --
Semantic drift / Lionel Shriver --
Ode al vento occidentale / Mark Sullivan --
Holiday review / Mark Sundeen --
My pink lake and other digressions / Alison Townsend --
Bed / David L. Ulin --
Breathe / Jerald Walker --
The unfound door / Stephanie Powell Watts --
Soul-error / Philip Weinstein --
Was Shakespeare a woman? / Elizabeth Winkler.

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Similar Series From Novelist

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for series you might like if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
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These series have the genre "arts and entertainment"; and the subject "social life and customs."
These series have the genre "arts and entertainment."
These series have the genre "arts and entertainment."
These series have the genre "arts and entertainment."
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Published Reviews

Booklist Review

The deadline for submissions to The Best American Essays in any given year is February first, so all of this year's material was written well before either the COVID-19 pandemic or recent Black Lives Matter protests. Despite this, the topics of many of these 24 essays seem strangely prescient: memories of a different epidemic, AIDS; the story of an elderly parent dying while away from family members; photos emphasizing racial profiling, white imperialism, bigotry, ignorance, and the isolation of solitary strangers. Bits of humor and kindness soften the harsh realities described in some accounts, and there are stories of acceptance, growth, and increased wisdom. Then there are the standalones, essays with topics ranging from Susan Sontag to Paleolithic cave figures to Leopold and Loeb to the Holocaust, which fold in snapshots of poetry, art criticism, philosophy, Shakespeare, and horror movies. As with previous series entries, this book's diverse array of subjects and authors represented, combined with its consistently strong writing and timely references to contemporary issues, makes for a compelling collection that should appeal widely.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
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Booklist Reviews

The deadline for submissions to The Best American Essays in any given year is February first, so all of this year's material was written well before either the COVID-19 pandemic or recent Black Lives Matter protests. Despite this, the topics of many of these 24 essays seem strangely prescient: memories of a different epidemic, AIDS; the story of an elderly parent dying while away from family members; photos emphasizing racial profiling, white imperialism, bigotry, ignorance, and the isolation of solitary strangers. Bits of humor and kindness soften the harsh realities described in some accounts, and there are stories of acceptance, growth, and increased wisdom. Then there are the standalones, essays with topics ranging from Susan Sontag to Paleolithic cave figures to Leopold and Loeb to the Holocaust, which fold in snapshots of poetry, art criticism, philosophy, Shakespeare, and horror movies. As with previous series entries, this book's diverse array of subjects and authors represented, combined with its consistently strong writing and timely references to contemporary issues, makes for a compelling collection that should appeal widely. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.

Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.
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