The Next American Essay [Paperback]

John D'Agata (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

D'Agata (Halls of Fame) avows love of the diversity of the essay form, and it is palpable on every page of this unique, esoteric, beautiful book. He tells the reader that he first became enamored of essays when his mother read him the news of the day while he was still in her womb. It is this kind of fantastic, myth-making perspective that runs through each entry of this anthology, whose contributors include such master essayists as John McPhee, Susan Sontag, Joan Didion and Annie Dillard. Hopping from one genre to another-biography, poetry, philosophy, travel writing, memoir-D'Agata makes the point that the essay is not just one form of writing but can be every form of writing. Although it may occasionally seem that D'Agata has chosen a selection to illustrate how erudite he is-such as Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's "Erato Love Poetry," a set of bewildering fragments and (literally) blank white space-many other choices convey the wondrously infinite possibilities of the essay form. Standouts include "Unguided Tour," Sontag's cranky philosophical dialogue with her inner self; "Life Story," David Shields's string of aphorisms composed entirely of bumper sticker slogans; "Ticket to the Fair," David Foster Wallace's colorful, compassionate tour of the Illinois State Fair; and "The Body," Jenny Boully's postmodern pastiche of autobiographical (or not) footnotes. D'Agata's idea of an essay-or lyric essay, as he comes to call these writings- conflates both art and fact, blurring the line between objectivity and subjectivity. The lyric essay, he says, has a "kind of logic that wants to sing." Readers, listen up, then: here is a book that makes some beautiful music.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

As he demonstrated in Halls of Fame (2001), D'Agata is an impressively poetic essayist, and now he pays tribute to his chosen form in a unique and astutely selected chronological collection of seminal lyric essays. Choosing one essay to represent each year up to the present, D'Agata begins in 1975 not only because it's the year of his birth but also because that's when John McPhee, grand master of what became known as creative nonfiction, published "The Search for Marvin Gardens," a shimmering hybrid of personal observations and lovingly recited facts about the board game Monopoly. A similarly complex mix of the objective and the subjective by Barry Lopez follows, as does a wily rumination by Susan Sontag, and an indelible piece by Joan Didion, empress of the plexus of the intimate and the political. Splendid, form-transcending performances by the likes of Anne Carson, Paul Metcalf, Sherman Alexie, Susan Griffin, and Carole Maso alternate with D'Agata's own sparkling musings on each year and each phase in the essay's evolution. This is a genuinely exhilarating work of literary history. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 488 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press (February 28, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555973752
• ISBN-13: 978-1555973759
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #14,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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  Books > Literature & Fiction > Essays

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RGM, January 25, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Next American Essay (Paperback)

Next American Essay will really make you think about the genre-
What is the essay? How do we define it and why? What are our expectations and do they matter?
If you are looking for a traditional anthology this book is not for you, but if you are interested in exploring the possibilities of the essay, this book is a find! Next American Essay offers the reader a lot, but most of it is not on the surface. This is not an anthology that is easy to skim through, but it's definitely worth a serious read.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Foolish reviewers..., October 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Next American Essay (Paperback)

...make me laugh. This is the best anthology of essays that anyone's even tried to produce in the past two decades. On top of that it's one of the most inovative anthologies of any genre category that I know of. What's missing is something of David Foster Wallace's more wilder side. Needs something from Ben Marcus, Harry Matthews, Joanne Beard, Susan Howe, and Lynn Hejinian.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essays Plus Essays, April 25, 2003

By	Consuelo M. Concepcion (Glasgow Scotland, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Next American Essay (Paperback)

The anthology is made up of about 30 essays by biggies like McPhee and Joan Didion and David Foster Wallace. Essays that everyone's read before. So it's not an anthology you turn to because you want to figure out what's new out there. Really it's anthology you turn to for the sake of the sensibility behind it, John D'Agata's own voice that somehow manages to creep into the anthology and carry the entire 500 pages through on a whimiscal story about why he loves essays. It's got to be the most charming anthology I've ever read. At times bold (many of the essays aren't traditinally thought of as essays), at times funny, sentimental, outright smart, the anthology is trying to show what the essay has in its potential. It's a huge success. But what makes it especially thrilling are the 30 extra essay we get from D'Agata himself, introductions that stand on their own like jewels embedded in the history of a genre.