As Booklist said, "Once readers discover this superb series, they will look forward to each new volume because each is distinctive, reflecting, as it does, the taste and perspective of the editor." This year Ian Frazier provides an unusually humorous and unpredictable selection, with a strong emphasis on family. The essays - from tall tale to riveting memoir - feature some of our most respected writers, including Susan Sontag, Roy Blount, Jr., Hilton Als, Thomas McGuane, and Joy Williams.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
The selections in this year's "best" no doubt reflect the unorthodox interests of the series's current editor, humorist Frazier (Coyote v. Acme, LJ 6/15/96): fishing, fighting, body piercing, and gee-gosh family memoirs. There are also rants against politeness, conventionality, and overpopulation (Joy Williams's hysterical "The Case Against Babies"). The two notable essays are assuredly those that open the collection, Jo Ann Beard's gripping "Fourth State of Matter" and Hilton Als's affecting "Notes on My Mother." Readers of major magazines won't find many nuggets here, save Le Thi Diem Thuy's account of his Vietnamese emigre family, "The Gangster We Are All Looking For," from the Massachusetts Review. Overall, the essays seem to have been chosen for their quirky social appeal rather than for the excellence of their writing. For libraries that collect the series.?Amy Boaz, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The latest sampling of choice nonfiction from America's literary journals and magazines, in a series that is a perennial success. In his introduction, this year's editor, humorist Frazier (Acme v. Coyote, 1996, etc.), describes the essay as a piece that happens when a writer quits longing for form and just writes ``for no better reason than the fun and release of saying.'' And because the genre ``provides a way to tell the narratives and speculate on them at the same time,'' he suggests, it has a particular appeal for an age quite self-absorbed and anxious to puzzle out where it is going. There are some familiar practitioners of the form here, including Susan Sontag, Cynthia Ozick, and Gay Talese. Other veteran writers, such as poet Charles Simic and novelists Richard Ford and Thomas McGuane, are less well known as essayists, though equally strong. And some less familiar writers contribute startling work. Among the standouts is Jo Ann Beard's tour-de-force ``The Fourth State of Matter,'' which describes in fascinating detail the events leading up to tragedy when a disillusioned physics doctoral candidate named Gang Lu shot up the offices of the Iowa City scientific journal where Beard was the managing editor, killing several people; and Paul Sheehan's ``My Habit,'' on his crack-vial collection, which retains its allure even without the cool photographs of his unusual archive that accompanied the essay's original publication in the New Yorker. Boston-based psychologist Lauren Slater's ``Black Swans,'' in which she describes her battles with obsessive-compulsive disorder, has a painful vibrancy. Vietnamese-American Lˆ Thi Diem Th£y's ``The Gangster We Are All Looking For'' is a wrenching exploration of immigrant life in California. Discrete but complementary entertainments in a range of keys that continue to define what is surely one of our most robust literary forms. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'97 Was A Vintage Year for Essays,
By
This review is from: The Best American Essays 1997 (Paperback)
The 1997 Best American Essays is probably my favorite volume in the Best American Essay series. Ian Frazier did a superb job in selecting the essays in the volume. For anyone who is looking for satisfying essays to read, this volume would be the ideal one to choose. A reason perhaps why the essays were selected to be "the best" is that each one touches upon a common cord that readers can easily empathize with. Family, memory, history, and politics are the most obvious underlying themes that run through each essays that I picked up on. My favorite essays included: Hilton Als's "Notes on My Mother," Verlyn Klinkenborg's "We Are Still Only Human," Luc Sante's "Living In Tongues," and "Charles Simic's "Dinner at Uncle Boris's." The other essays are all equaly great.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best literary bang for your buck,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Best American Essays 1997 (Paperback)
I used to subscribe to Granta, New Yorker, Double Take, The Sun and other magazines but I found I really didn't have time for all of them. Best American Essays provides many of the same great reads in one volume. In the 1997 issue I particularly enjoyed Joy Williams "The Case Against Babies", and Paul Sheehan's essay "My Habit" is sheer genius. Each writing is wonderful though, and I often enjoy reading other works by the authors after I am introduced to their talents through the "Best Essays" series.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great collection,
This review is from: The Best American Essays 1997 (Paperback)
This edition is a wonderful collection of exciting creative nonfiction that pushes the boundaries of what we call the "essay." Anyone who thinks essays are boring should read "The Gangster We're All Looking For" and "The Fourth State of Matter" because these are anything but. If only more collections included beautiful and powerful work like this.
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