The Best American Essays 2018
Page 37
Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2017
Selected by Robert Atwan
André Aciman
Underground, Harvard Review, #50
Naa Baako Ako-Adjei
Why It’s Time Schools Stopped Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, Transition, #122
Marcia Aldrich
Wallpaper: A Parable, Hypertext Review, Spring
Jason Arment
White Whale, The Iowa Review, Spring
Whit Arnold
Snap, Midwestern Gothic, Summer
Chris Arthur
Sleepers, New Hibernia Review, Summer
Kendra Atleework
Dawn of Tomorrow, Territory, March
Karen Babine
Orange, Zone 3, Spring
Jennifer Baker
What We Aren’t (or the Ongoing Divide), Kweli, June 23
Bruce Ballenger
Return to the Typewriter, Fourth Genre, Spring
John Barth
Out of the Cradle, Granta, #140
Molly Bashaw
Lebenslauf, Crazyhorse, Fall
M. Bayless
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Event, 45/3
Dan Beachy-Quick
Even, Zone 3, Spring
Gorman Beauchamp
Open Casket and Cultural Appropriation, The Antioch Review, Fall
Elizabeth Benedict
Do You Come Here Often? Kitchen Work, Winter
Stephen Benz
Unapproachable Evanston, Cream City Review, Fall
Emily Bernard
Interstates, The American Scholar, Spring
David Bersell
My Father Is a Collection, Hobart, June 1
Sven Birkerts
“What Next?” AGNI, #85
Kathleen Blackburn
Daughter Tongue, Colorado Review, Summer
Andrew Blevins
The Egg Man, Crazyhorse, Fall
Emma Bogdonoff
Schrodinger’s Ovaries, The Threepenny Review, Winter
Marc Bookman
Three Murders in Philadelphia, Slate, May 12
Jenny Boully
Cindy Dodge, Aerialist, Fall, The Iowa Review, Fall
Michael Brandow
Confessions of a Hello Kitty Killer: The Pernicious Effects of Cuteness, Quillette, June 24
Jamie Brisick
The Dazzling Blackness, The Surfer’s Journal, August/September 26/4
Rosellen Brown
Offstage: Scenes You Will Not See, People You Will Never Meet, New Letters, 83/4
Mara Buck
A Year in Oblivion—An Artistic Journey, Hektoen International, Winter
Aaron Burch
Subliminal Messages: On Nine Inch Nails’ “Broken,” Catapult, August 23
Jessica Burstein
All Politics, Raritan, Summer
Amy Butcher
Bare Necessities, Harper’s Magazine, March
Wendy Call
Apothecarium, StoryQuarterly, #50
Brian Calvert
Down the Dark Mountain, High Country News, July 24
Leonarda Carranza
Body Out of Place, Room, 40/3
Melissa Chadburn
The Human Cost of the Ghost Economy, Longreads, December
Alexander Chee
The Poisoning, Tin House, #72
Kelly Cherry
My Beethoven, LitMag, Spring
James M. Chesbro
Trains, Zone 3, Spring
Lee Isaac Chung
Love Letters, Image, #93
Steven Church
On Water Heaters, Earthquakes, and Encountering the Dynamic Sublime, Hotel Amerika, Winter
Robert Clark
Father and Son, Conjunctions, #68
Joshua Cohen
It’s a Circle, The Point, Summer
Paula Marantz Cohen
My Reading Habit, The Yale Review, October
Rich Cohen
The Bestest Generation, Vanity Fair, September
Tyrese L. Coleman
How to Mourn, Kenyon Review, November/December
Joan Connor
At the Circus, Bennington Review, Summer
Molly Cooney
Transition: The Renaming of Hope, The Georgia Review, Summer
John Corbett
Sun Ra in Sin City, Lapham’s Quarterly, Fall
Hal Crowther
Christian Soldiers, Narrative, March 24
T. K. Dalton
The Intimate Register, Apogee, #9
J. D. Daniels
Signs and Wonders, Esquire, May
Stephanie Danler
Engrams, California, The Sewanee Review, Winter
Rana Dasgupta
Notes on a Suicide, Granta, #140
Carol Ann Davis
On Loose Thread, The Georgia Review, Fall
William Deresiewicz
On Political Correctness, The American Scholar, Spring
Jaquira Diaz
You Do Not Belong Here, KROnline, May/June
Mimi Dixon
Breath, Ploughshares, Winter
Jennifer Doe
Any Woman Can Write This, Witness, Winter
Bill Donahue
Painting the Fence, Yankee, March/April
Brian Doyle
Everyone Thinks That Awful Comes by Itself, But It Doesn’t, The Sun, February
Jacqueline Doyle
Family Pictures, The Gettysburg Review, Summer
Andre Dubus III
The Descent, River Teeth, Spring
Irina Dumitrescu
Swan, Late, Longreads, February 7
Martha Grace Duncan
What Not to Do When Your Roommate Is Murdered in Italy: Amanda Knox, Her “Strange” Behavior, and the Italian Legal System, Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, 41/1
Sue Eisenfeld
Taking It, Potomac Review, #61
Lucy Ellmann
The Lost Art of Staying Put, The Baffler, #37
Osayi Endolyn
Another Country, Oxford American, Fall
Joseph Epstein
Hitting Eighty, The Weekly Standard, January 2/9
Juliet Escoria
A Myth about Self-Harm, Catapult, August 11
G. C. Esselstyn
Parents and Guardians, New Ohio Review, Spring
Anne Fadiman
Jew, The Yale Review, October
Bruce Falconer
Stuck in Winesburg, Ohio, Humanities, Fall
Althea Fann
Paper Houses, Cimarron Review, Spring/Summer/Fall
N’Kenge Feagin
Dead Daddies and White Castles, Lunch Ticket, June 16
Andrew Ferguson
Writer’s Seat, The Weekly Standard, September 11
Matthew Ferrence
The Foxes of Prince Edward Island, The Gettysburg Review, Spring
Lucy Ferriss
Meditation on Pain, Prairie Schooner, Summer
Gary Fincke
Inexplicable, Cimarron Review, Spring/Summer/Fall
Maribeth Fischer
Damage, The Yale Review, January
Nick Flynn
Canopic, Salmagundi, Spring
Robert Long Foreman
Nothing Comes Back from the Dump, Electric Literature, January 13
Krista Foss
Choosing Your Poison, Prism, Winter
Patricia Foster
Worcester: Joe Stalin Is No Longer Here, The Antioch Review, Spring
Jonathan Franzen
Under Construction: Manhattan, 1981, The New Yorker, October 23
Ian Frazier
Drive Time, The New Yorker, August 28
J. K. Frerichs
The Good Life, Gold Man Review, #6
Zoe Gadegbeku
My Secondhand Lonely, Slice, Spring/Summer
Laura Winther Galaviz
If You Ever, Grist, #10
Molly Gallentine
Powder House, Fourth
Genre, Spring
J. Malcolm Garcia
A Promise to Keep, War, Literature & the Arts, Fall/Winter
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
A Most American Terrorist, GQ, August
John Gifford
It Nourishes You, Kestrel, Spring
Susan Golomb
Jewess in Wool Clothing, Los Angeles Review of Books, October 10
Rebecca Goodrich
Guns I Know, Arcadia, Spring
Elizabeth Fox Gordon
Against Solidarity, The American Scholar, Autumn
Michael Graff
Averaging Out to Me, Success, May
Vince Granata
First Visit, The Chattahoochee Review, Spring
Peter Grandbois
Passion, Mount Hope, #12
Sarah Curtis Graziano
Daughter of a Gun, River Teeth, Fall
Cynthia R. Greenlee
The Word Is “Nemesis”: The Fight to Integrate the National Spelling Bee, Longreads, June
Alice Gregory
Little Things, Harper’s Magazine, February
Jennifer Grotz
An Anxiety of Influence for Girls, The American Poetry Review, January/February
Melissa Grunow
Dwelling Place, Solidago Literary Journal, Spring
Margaret Morganroth Gullette
The One Who Feeds Us All, Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall
Katharine Haake
Diptych: Photography, Brain, Alaska Quarterly Review, Winter/Spring
Michael Hall
The Trouble with Innocence, Texas Monthly, April
Jane Eaton Hamilton
Skinning the Rabbit, The Sun, July
Re’Lynn Hansen
The Han Gan, The Florida Review, Spring
Githa Hariharan
When Bodies Speak, World Literature Today, March/April
Megan Harlan
Spider Season, AGNI, #85
Saidiya Hartman
The Terrible Beauty of the Sun, Brick, #99
Gladys Haunton
Headless Henny and the Language of Doubt, The Turnip Truck(s), 3/2
Karen Hays
Reconciliation Story, Conjunctions, #68
Fiona Helmsley
All the Ways an Era Ends, Hazlitt, October 24
De Witt Henry
Notes on Time, Juked, August 8
Leigh Ann Henton
Target Lessons, The Washington Post Magazine, March 19
Michael J. Hess
James Dean Posters on the Wall, Post Road, #32
Jennifer Hildebrandt
Jacket, Bellevue Literary Review, Spring
Caitlin Hill
Living Where No One Wants To, Midwestern Gothic, Summer
Kathryn Anne Hindenlang
Burn the House Down, Apogee, #9
Jack Hitt
The Meaning of Antonin Scalia, Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall
Edward Hoagland
Sleeping Together, New Letters, 83/2&3
Cate Hodorowicz
Dazzle, Mimic, Blend, The Georgia Review, Fall
Richard Holinger
The Art of Passivity, Thread, August 28
Santi Elijah Holley
The Process, Portland Review, Spring
A. M. Homes
The File: Lost Then Found, Granta, #140
Kevin Honold
King Oedipus, The Louisville Review, Spring
Ann Hood
What They Saw, The Normal School, Fall
Marya Hornbacher
Whether to Brine a Bird, Bellingham Review, Spring
William Howarth
Reading Thoreau at 200, The American Scholar, Summer
William Huhn
Grave Ivy, Flint Hills Review, #22
Rachel Hurn
White Water, The Literary Review, Late Winter
Naomi Jackson
Joy Comes in the Morning, Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer
Toni Jensen
Women in the Fracklands, Catapult, January 3
Rosemary Jones
Flight Behavior, Cimarron Review, Spring/Summer/Fall
David Joy
Digging in the Trash, The Bitter Southerner, April 25
Judith Kalman
Testifying, Another Chicago Magazine, October 30
Andrew Kay
Pilgrim at Tinder Creek, The Point, Winter
Tyler Keevil
Swarf, The Missouri Review, 40/1
Garret Keizer
Facing North, Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter
Tabish Khair
Postcolonial Resentments, The Massachusetts Review, Summer
Kate Kimball
Withheld: A Patient Medical History Questionnaire, Emrys Journal, #34
John Kimmey
Fear and Trembling, Ruminate, Spring
Alison Kinney
How Deep Is Your Love? Lapham’s Quarterly, Fall
Hannah Kittle
Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down, Lalitamba, 2017
Perri Klass
I’m Not Talking to Anybody, Bellevue Literary Review, Fall
Geeta Kothari
Dreams of Home, Cosmonauts Avenue, November
Brandon Kreitler
Thought-Work in the Glowing Field, AGNI, #85
Richard Kreitner
Paterson: Alexander Hamilton’s Trickle-Down City, The Nation, March 13
Naira Kuzmich
Garni-Geghard, Ecotone, Spring/Summer
Katherine Laidlaw
A Place of Absorption, Hazlitt, March 16
Mark Lane
Keeping Faith, The American Scholar, Spring
John Langenfeld
Washing Clothes, The Threepenny Review, Summer
Richard Scott Larson
What “Halloween” Taught Me About Queerness, Electric Literature, October 31
Evan Lavender-Smith
Post-its, New England Review, 38/4
David Lazar
When I’m Awfully Low: On Singing, The Normal School, Spring
Amy Leach
The Green Man, A Public Space, #25
Lawrence Lenhart
If the Ferret Crosses the Road, Creative Nonfiction, Summer
E. J. Levy
Natural World, Passages North, #38
YiYun Li
To Speak Is to Blunder, The New Yorker, January 2
Brandon Lingle
Stop-Loss, The Normal School, Spring
Jie Liu
The Hug, Emrys Journal, #34
Mel Livatino
Golf Dreams, Under the Sun, Summer
Sonja Livingston
Like This We Begin: An Essay in Two Photographs, Ruminate, Summer
Amy Long
A Glossary of Terms: Excerpts from An Encyclopedia of Iatrogenic Opioid Addiction, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Spring/Summer
Valeria Luiselli
I Is Another, Freeman’s, October
Carmen Machado
The Trash Heap Has Spoken, Guernica, February 13
Saikat Majumdar
The Critic as Amateur, New Literary History, Winter
Eli Payne Mandel
Footing Slow: A Walk with Keats, Ploughshares Solos, Fall
Sarah Lapido Manyika
On Meeting Toni Morrison, Transition, #124
Jane Marcellus
My Father’s Tooth, Sycamore Review, 28/2
Greg Marshall
Lies My Mother Told Me, Tahoma Literary Review, Spring
Clancy Martin
Big Mother, The Believer, October/November
Lee Martin
The Healing Line, The Cincinnati Review, Summer
Marilyn Martin
The Scapular, Catamaran, Fall
Michael Martone
Hat Trick, Southern Humanities Review, Spring