Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers [Paperback]

Matt Kellogg (Editor), Jillian Quint (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 29, 2006

Selected as the winners of Random House’s national contest, a stunning collection of essays ranging from comic to poignant, personal to political, by the newest, brightest young writers you haven’t heard of . . . yet.

Here, for the first time, current twentysomethings come together on their own terms, in their own words, and begin to define this remarkably diverse and self-aware generation. Tackling an array of subjects–career, family, sex, religion, technology, art–they form a vibrant, unified community while simultaneously proving that there is no typical twentysomething experience.

In this collection, a young father works the late-night shift at Wendy’s, learning the finer points of status, teamwork, and french fries. An artist’s nude model explains why she’s happy to be viewed as an object. An international relief worker wrestles with his choices as he starts to resent the very people who need his help the most. A devout follower of Joan Didion explains what New York means to her. And a young army engineer spends his time in Kuwait futilely trying to grow a mustache like his dad’s.

With grace, wit, humor, and urgency, these writers invite us into their lives and into their heads. Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers is a rich, provocative read as well as a bold statement from a generation just now coming into its own.

Praise for Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers

“Being in your twenties is weird. The world tells you you’re a grown-up, but damn if you feel like one. With 29 sharply observant and well-written snapshots of life between the ages of 19 and 30, Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers couldn’t have captured this more perfectly.”
–Nylon

“You’ll devour this compilation of essays by funny, smart, insightful young writers in just a few hours.”
–Jane Magazine

“[Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers offers] a wide variety of experience. . . . If we are still looking for a voice for this generation, I’d nominate this eclectic choir instead.”
–Orlando Sentinel

“[Ranging] from playful and absurd to poignant and earnest . . . [Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers is] a bold reminder that this generation is extremely diverse and very capable. . . . These essays will speak to you no matter your age.”
–Austinist.com

“Delightful . . . Whether admitting they are only just beginning to see their own parents as people or struggling to balance graduate study and parenthood, the essayists blend morbid irony and idealism. . . . This highly readable collection of voices is more assured and memorable than one might have expected from such a venture.”
–Publishers Weekly

“Earnest, honest, and well-written . . . a propitious look at writers coming of age right now, and it’s a pleasant surprise.”
–The Phoenix (Boston)

“A slice of Gen Y life: everything from OCD, rape, and depression to a nude-art-class model, online communities, and how to find (and keep) a drummer. Pick up your copy.”
–stuff@night (Boston)

“The essays . . . have an urgency, an immediacy, even as the subject matter runs the gamut from sex to death.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This delightful literary anthology of memoir-style essays by American writers under 30 is the fruit of an Internet contest organized by Kellogg and Quint, editorial assistants at Random House. Its acutely self-aware observers and philosophers inhabit experience intensely. Many write about work, be it night shifts at Wendy's, serving the U.S. military in Kuwait or playing with infuriating fellow band members in New York City. Whether admitting they are only just beginning to see their own parents as people or struggling to balance graduate study and parenthood, the essayists blend morbid irony and idealism. Many write of a dawning realization of mortality: Jennifer Glaser writes with a perfectly judged tone about being in love and losing a boyfriend to leukemia. Others attempt to define their generation and the trends that dominate it: John Fischer, who works for a company that monitors changing consumer attitudes, savagely contemplates high-tech capitalist consumer culture, while Theodora Stites, considering her obsession with Friendster and MySpace, confesses, "I am trying desperately be a celebrity in the network of my own digital world." This highly readable collection of voices is more assured and memorable than one might have expected from such a venture. 34 illus. (Sept. 5)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS
Between the hours of 10:00 A.M. and 11:59 P.M. on November 24, 2005, the inbox of [e-mail] was inundated with more than one thousand e-mails. Was it spam? A virus? Were people finally responding to our Match.com profile? No, we still couldn’t find a date or a good deal on Viagra. It was simply the deadline for the Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers contest, and as it turned out, nearly everyone—two-thirds of the total contestants—had waited until literally the last minute to submit.

According to our colleagues, this meant we were a generation of procrastinators, too busy blogging about our recently diagnosed ADHD or watching the first season of The OC to get our act together and turn something in ahead of time; the contest had run for a full six months, after all. And they had a point. But the more we thought about it, the more we realized that this procrastination wasn’t necessarily a generational fault but rather an indication of how today’s world works. In an era of text messaging, online shopping, and movies on demand, why would anyone do anything more than a day or two in advance? It’s not that we’re lazy or bratty or glib; it’s just that we’re fast. We know how to access all kinds of information, and we have absolute confidence in the tools at our disposal.

In fact, it was precisely because of this technological immediacy that the contest attracted such a large, wide-ranging pool of writers. When we first launched our website, we had two listings on Google; the next week, fifty; as of this writing, we’re at 1,130. Though at first we were concerned that certain groups or types of twentysomethings might dominate the collection—it would be a problem if everyone was from Albuquerque or played the lute or worked at Petco—we were bowled over by the breadth and depth of the submissions we received. We heard from prison inmates, soldiers, production assistants, corporate-ladder climbers, pastry chefs. And not only were the writers themselves diverse, but each offered a new way of thinking about a given subject. Is ethnicity tantamount to identity or is it a barrier to overcome? Should we be planning careers and families or living moment to moment? How do we negotiate our roles as both someone’s child and someone’s parent? Do we approach God with skepticism or trust? To what extent can we effect political change? What’s funny? What’s not? How can we make art that’s new, and do we even want to?

Because of this diversity, we had trouble discerning overarching themes in these essays. It seemed almost audacious to make any blanket statements about a generation that so consistently asserts its volatility, but we’re nothing if not audacious, so we gave it a shot. We began by doing what any incredibly anal person confronted with an overwhelming amount of information would do: we pigeon-holed. Having narrowed the field down to one hundred essays, we subdivided the finalists and slapped on tidy little labels—Ethnic Identity; Cubicle Culture; Born-Again Agnosticism; Indie/Underground/Post-Trip-Hop/Pre-Grunge-Revival; Deep, Philosophical, Possibly Drug-Enhanced Ruminations on Life; and, of course, Sex. Lots and lots of Sex. Some of the categories, like Gay Issues and Women’s Studies, even started to sound like 200-level liberal arts courses.

But ultimately our well-intentioned bigotry was for naught. For example, early on we relegated a piece about a Web-radio obsession to the Technology section. As we moved through the rest of the submissions, though, we saw that it could just as easily have worked under the heading Pop Culture or Career (the author listens to her favorite station to get her through the workday) or Family (she fondly remembers her father’s addiction to NPR). And this kept happening. No single essay, it seemed, fit snugly into a single category. It was like we were stuck using a Microsoft Outlook approach in a Gmail world. (For those not familiar with the difference, Outlook only allows you to sort each e-mail into a single folder, while the exceedingly brilliant people at Google figured out that you could cross-reference messages by an unlimited number of distinct labels.) Maybe it was just the sleep deprivation talking, but everything seemed to be about, well, everything. We didn’t know whether to jump for joy or weep in a corner.

The problem was that such “everything-ness” seemed to spoil any claims of twentysomething solidarity. Our generation has often been accused of political apathy, of lacking the unity of ideology and purpose that the Boomers—our parents—were so famous for. According to popular opinion, we are all supposed to be deeply polarized by the Red/Blue divide. Which side we land on, we are told, should dictate who we vote for, what we wear, how we feel about NASCAR. But, in reality, the spectrum is much wider and more colorful. We are not apathetic; we’ve simply learned to make more subtle distinctions. Because of the Gmail Effect, we can each adopt a multitude of personas that ebb and flow depending on context. And this, in our humble opinion, is very cool.

A mutual friend once commented that there isn’t a twentysomething out there, home-schooled hermits and bow-tied Republicans aside, who doesn’t love The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And that was even before the Crossfire appearance. So, if we are such a diverse, nuanced generation, why is it that a late-night comedy show on cable TV has become our universal point of reference? Sure, the fart jokes and celebrity interviews don’t hurt, but ultimately we watch because Stewart and company have come to reflect our core values: a new brand of humor that recognizes that reality is itself a punch line, a categorically skeptical point of view, and a genuine engagement with the world around us. And these values are what enable us to make informed decisions and keep up hope in legitimately troubled times (i.e., recent elections, natural disasters, Nick and Jessica’s downfall, etc.).

The writers in this book recognize the problems, big and not-so-big, that our generation faces. With hope, intelligence, irreverence, and urgency, they show that we are not to be taken lightly (but not too seriously, either), that we’re finally ready to sit at the proverbial Grownups’ Table. Like the twentysomethings who have come before us, we’ve slogged through the absurdities of postadolescence/preadulthood and are prepared for anything the world might throw at us— except, God forbid, turning thirty.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812975669
• ISBN-13: 978-0812975666
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bronson Lemer is a creative writer, journalist, editor, and teacher. He spent six years as a carpenter with the North Dakota Army National Guard, including deployments to Kosovo and Iraq. His experiences in Iraq are the basis for his memoir The Last Deployment. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in mass communications and English from Minnesota State University Moorhead and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His creative writing has appeared in The Reykjavik Grapevine, Blue Earth Review, and Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers. He has taught English in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Korea, China, and on board a U.S. Navy guided-missile carrier. He is currently teaching in North Dakota.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 20Somethings Write, September 13, 2006

By 

Caroline M. Grant - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers (Paperback)

The writers in this great collection are keeping very busy: raising kids; nursing a boyfriend through terminal illness; maturing in Kuwait; working at Wendy's; learning to "dance" with their OCD; logging on to Friendster, Facebook, MySpace and Nerve accounts -- they've got a lot going on, and it was fun to check out of my life for a bit and listen in on theirs.

My favorite essay has to be Elrena Evans' "My Little Comma," which I edited for its first home at LiteraryMama.com. It might fit even better here with its twentysomething companions. Evans and her daughter nurse, watch Star Trek, read The Baby Goes Beep, navigate graduate school meetings, and nurse a whole lot more. I've read this essay, in various versions, over a dozen times in the past year and it never gets old.

Other essays I particularly loved... Jess Lacher's "California" reminded me of how strange and unfamiliar it all seemed when I first arrived here myself: the "gentle and mysterious suggestions" of the seasons; the intense and exotic plants; the sense of being on a "vacation life". Emma Black writes about teaching elementary school and learning how to "Think Outside the Box But Stay Inside the Grid." For the sake of her students, I hope she keeps trying. Radhiyah Ayobami spends "An Evening in April" getting a treat for her son before the curfew at their shelter; they give some change to a woman on the corner, and Ayobami imagines someday going to the park with this stranger and her kids: "People would look at us, and instead of seeing two beggars, they'd see two mothers with children, and they'd smile. I had big plans for that woman, if only I could see her again." In Shahnaz Habib's gorgeous "Backlash," written the day of the bomb blasts in Delhi, she worries about an old friend and thinks sadly of the secret relationship they have now lost.

When I started reading this collection, I was thinking I don't know too many people who are in their twenties, but now I kind of feel like I do. That's some fine writing.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A glimpse into a diverse world, February 6, 2007

By 

T. Suzanne Eller, Author "Suzanne Eller, Author" (beautiful NE Oklahoma) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers (Paperback)

Reading Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething writers is like sampling divinity and liverwurst. Each story represents a diverse lifestyle and way of thinking. Some seem trite or odd, while others plunge you into the heart of what it means to be 24 and serving in Kuwait, or experiencing the death of a loved one and being a widow when it's far from familiar or fashionable.

It's interesting, like glimpsing into the window of what it means to be a twentysomething, and yet the truth is that we're all different, no matter our age. We all experience life on our own terms. We all think that life's challenges are large, until we see that someone else has experienced far greater obstacles than we have.

As I sampled these essays, I looked for those essays that were deep and insightful and I look forward to watching those writers find their niche in the literary world.

2 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars gift for my daughter, January 16, 2007

By 

Sheri Granberry "cinnimonn_girll" (USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers (Paperback)

Actually I didn't read the book, but I'd like to! It was a Christmas gift for my daughter, who is almost 20... she loves to read, and I thought this might be something that would interest her... she loved it...