The Best American Essays

This is another fine collection of essays in the Best American series, and perhaps it stands out also for two other reasons. First, it was edited by Stephen J. Gould shortly before his death, and, secondly, because it is a thematically-driven collection. Five years have passed since its publication, and I think the essays--as a collection--have an especially poignant connection to each other. They are personal, heartfelt, and decidedly reflective; most are beautifully written (as one would expect from a Best American collection); some are stunning in their quietly stated emotion. The best essays? I'm a big fan of David Halberstam and Atul Gawande; they can do no wrong, and both of their essays are top notch. I liked the Richard Price and Anne Hudson-Price collaboration. Mario Vargas Llosa's essay is wonderful. My personal favorite in this book, however, is "Fire" by Amy Kolen, a powerful essay that captures the sweep of history and the dignity of lost lives. If we learned anything from 9/11, the event that this collection memorializes, it is that innocent citizens--women and men who care little about politics, who just want to go to work and earn a living and support a family--are often the tragic victims of greedy and politics.

I stumbled upon this gem a few weeks ago at a used book store. What made me buy it (I didn't have time to finish reading it in-house) was the essay "Winner Take Nothing." It's a poignant tale of a middle age man coming to terms with the nature of his relationship with his father, particularly in light of his fahter's aging. It alone is worth the price of admission: it really lingers with you, and does what good literature should, it may alter the way you view your world, and even your parents. Unlike the editor, I love confessional, stream of conscious, intensely personal narratives, and post 9/11 2002 (the year in which the essays were taken from) are loaded with them. Being that we are away from September 11, you may find the 9/11 essays enlightening in a long-term context, or you may just be a little saturated (like I was). It depends on the person. The essays that really stand out in my mind of a non WTC variety are "My Father's Brain" and another one on a woman's journey with her son with a debilitating illness. These both haunt you and give a satisfying commentary on the nature of love, family, memory, human self-preservation and the darker aspects of duty: guilt, selfishness, fatigue and even resentment. I found "My Father's Brain" to be particulary well written and structured. I think what's so great about these essays is: they're alive. Essays can have all the stimulating quality of warm milk. But these essays are *essays,* but they do more than just prognosticate and drone on in correct format. They educate, they emote, they live and they entertain. And I think that is why this volume was so enjoyable.

this essay was printed in Harpers and isn't available ANY WHERE else but in this book. It is easier to buy this book than to look for an old issue of Harpers. This is the BEST essay on breast cancer imho. It is wise and perceptive and cuts through a lot of the pink stuff of breast cancer activism. elsa dorfman, NoHairDay collective. Cambridge, MA

I had the false impression that the writing and thoughts in this year's Best American Essays would be overwhelmed by the events of September 11, but this book provides a lot of breadth and depth. Gould's selections are excellent; I can't think of a single essay here that does not have some kind of redeeming value. Jacques Barzun's The Tenth Muse and Mario Vargas Lhosa's "Why Literature?" are the requisite but eloquent pieces about the nature and necessity of art. Danielle Ofri's "Merced" is a standout piece: about how a young doctor learns about the fallibility of medicine through a patient's unsolvable illness. I disagree with the reviewers here who found Gore Vidal's "The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh" unworthy of inclusion in the volume; the essay shows another view on the perpetrator of the Oklahoma City bombing that warrants us to consider why some people commit acts of terror, though the piece ultimately fails when Vidal utilizes tired and trite anti government rhetoric. Nicholas Delblanco's "The Countess of Stanlein Restored" is an absorbing history of the origins and restoration of a Stradivarius cello. Adam Mayblum's "The Price We Pay" does not have the polish and pyrotechnics we expect from some of these essayists, but his straightforward telling of his escape from the World Trade towers on September 11 makes for a harrowing recounting of the events.

This year's installment of the Best American Essays is a great selection (but then aren't they always). It was one of the last projects Stephen Jay Gould finished before he died last May. Of course there are all kinds of arguments that can be made for and against certain selections being included and not included. Three essays really got to me as the best of the bunch (and essays that I imagine I'll reread again and again in the future). The first is Franzen's essay on his father's decline in Alzheimer's. It's a touching essay that is well-written, humorous at times, and helps to understand the `human' reaction to the disease. The other essays is Bernard Cooper's "Winner Take Nothing" which is a very funny interplay between a father and son who don't understand each other. I remember reading it in GQ, and thinking that this essay surely would be selected for the Best American series. Nicholas Delbanco's essay "The Countess of Stanlein Restored" is a wonderfully written essay that covers the history of violin making and the restoration of one of the more famous violins, and anyone who loves music will love this essay. Barbara Ehrenreich has an essay discussing her ordeal with breast cancer, and what makes this essay so good is that it isn't all the hopefulness and joy you find in others of its type, rather she deals with the real emotions she felt-the bitterness. And with an almost tongue-in-cheek humor. Sebastion Junger has his `typical' style essay dealing with the fight for freedom in Afganistan. It's well-written, like his work tends to be. Andrew Levy's essay on Robert Carter III shows why we don't know who Carter is-he just isn't quite interesting enough to write about. There's also an interesting essay by Danielle Ofri on one incident in her medical school training (this essay has convinced me to pick up her collection of memoir essays on med school). There's a great essay by Darryl Pinckney dealing with a middle-aged, middle-class black man getting busted for marijuana possession. It's funny and frightening at the same time. Typical New Yorker material though. Gore Vidal has an essay on McVeigh-which is at times well-written, but at other times borders on the paranoid and juvenile. It is an interesting read though. And the final essay of the collection is Wolfson's "Moonrise" which is another autobiographical essay dealing with the illness of a relative-this one of her son. It's a touching essay that fills the reader with sadness and joy. Some of the weaker essays are: Jacques Barzun's "The Tenth Muse" which is part biography of Clifton Fadiman and part question on culture, but doesn't ever say anything. And there are the group of obligatory 9-11essays, though not the best I've seen. Amy Kolen has an extremely dull essay, "Fire," which I found so boring, I couldn't even finish it.