The Best American Essays 2014 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Introduction: The Ill-Defined Plot

  TIMOTHY AUBRY A Matter of Life and Death

  WENDY BRENNER Strange Beads

  JOHN H. CULVER The Final Day in Rome

  KRISTIN DOMBEK Letter from Williamsburg

  DAVE EGGERS The Man at the River

  EMILY FOX GORDON At Sixty-Five

  MARY GORDON On Enmity

  VIVIAN GORNICK Letter from Greenwich Village

  LAWRENCE JACKSON Slickheads

  LESLIE JAMISON The Devil’s Bait

  ARIEL LEVY Thanksgiving in Mongolia

  YIYUN LI Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life

  BARRY LOPEZ Sliver of Sky

  CHRIS OFFUTT Someone Else

  ZADIE SMITH Joy

  ELIZABETH TALLENT Little X

  WELLS TOWER The Old Man at Burning Man

  JERALD WALKER How to Make a Slave

  PAUL WEST On Being Introduced

  JAMES WOOD Becoming Them

  BARON WORMSER Legend: Willem de Kooning

  Contributors’ Notes

  Notable Essays of 2013

  Read More from The Best American Series®

  About the Editors

  Footnotes

  Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

  Introduction copyright © 2014 by John Jeremiah Sullivan

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  The Best American Series® and The Best American Essays® are registered trademarks of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. With the exception of nonprofit transcription in Braille, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is not authorized to grant permission for further uses of copyrighted selections reprinted in this book without the permission of their owners. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein. Address requests for permission to make copies of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt material to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhco.com

  ISSN 0888-3742

  ISBN 978-0-544-30990-6

  eISBN 978-0-544-30932-6

  v1.0914

  “A Matter of Life and Death” by Timothy Aubry. First published in The Point, #I Fall 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Timothy Aubry. Reprinted by permission of The Point and Timothy Aubry.

  “Strange Beads” by Wendy Brenner. First published in Oxford American, Summer 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Wendy Brenner. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Final Day in Rome” by John H. Culver. First published in The Gettysburg Review, Summer 2013. Copyright © 2014 by John H. Culver. Reprinted by permission of John H. Culver.

  “Letter from Williamsburg” by Kristin Dombek. First published in The Paris Review, #205, Summer 2013. Copyright © 2013 by The Paris Review. Reprinted by permission of The Paris Review and Kristin Dombek. Excerpt from “Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World” from Things of This World by Richard Wilbur. Copyright © 1956 and renewed 1984 by Richard Wilbur. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

  “The Man at the River” by Dave Eggers. First published in Granta, Summer 2013. Copyright © 2014 by Dave Eggers. Reprinted by permission of Granta and the author.

  “At Sixty-Five” by Emily Fox Gordon. First published in The American Scholar, Summer 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Emily Fox Gordon. Reprinted by permission of Emily Fox Gordon.

  “On Enmity” by Mary Gordon. First published in Salmagundi, Winter 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Mary Gordon. Reprinted by permission of the author and Salmagundi.

  “Letter from Greenwich Village” by Vivian Gornick. First published in The Paris Review, #204, Spring 2013. Copyright © 2013 by The Paris Review. Reprinted by permission of The Paris Review and Vivian Gornick.

  “Slickheads” by Lawrence Jackson. First published in n+1, Winter 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Lawrence Jackson. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Devil’s Bait” by Leslie Jamison. First published in Harper’s Magazine, September 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Leslie Jamison. Reprinted by permission of Leslie Jamison.

  “Thanksgiving in Mongolia” by Ariel Levy. First published in The New Yorker, November 18, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Ariel Levy. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life” by Yiyun Li. First published in A Public Space, #19, Fall 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Yiyun Li. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

  “Sliver of Sky” by Barry Lopez. First published in Harper’s Magazine, January 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Barry Lopez. Reprinted by permission of Sterling Lord Literistic.

  “Someone Else” by Chris Offutt. First published in River Teeth, Fall 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Chris Offutt. Reprinted by permission of Chris Offutt.

  “Joy” by Zadie Smith. First published in The New York Review of Books, January 10, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Zadie Smith. Reprinted by permission of Zadie Smith.

  “Little X” by Elizabeth Tallent. First published in The Threepenny Review, Spring 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Elizabeth Tallent. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Old Man at Burning Man” by Wells Tower. First published in GQ, February 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Wells Tower. Reprinted by permission of Wells Tower.

  “How to Make a Slave” by Jerald Walker. First published in Southern Humanities Review, Fall 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Jerald Walker. Reprinted by permission of Jerald Walker.

  “On Being Introduced” by Paul West. First published in The Yale Review, January 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Paul West. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Becoming Them” by James Wood. First published in The New Yorker, January 21, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by James Wood. Reprinted by permission of James Wood. Excerpt from “How Shall I Mourn Them?” by Lydia Davis from The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. Copyright © 2009 by Lydia Davis. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

  “Legend: Willem de Kooning” by Baron Wormser. First published in Grist, #6, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Baron Wormser. Reprinted by permission of Baron Wormser

  Foreword

  In recent years we’ve heard a lot about the issue of truth in nonfiction, the impetus for this topic deriving mainly from a stream of disingenuous memoirs. By truth—and I’ll avoid the customary nervous quote marks—we generally mean how honestly and accurately the writing represents the actions and events the writer depicts. Is the writer telling us exactly what happened? Is he embellishing, fabricating, making things up, in an attempt to tell a compelling story (ah, that potentially deceitful narrative arc!) or to characterize himself as attractively virtuous or appealingly naughty? Sounding frank, honest, and sincere is, of course, a rhetorical strategy in itself, known from ancient literature as parrhesia. It’s often employed by liars.

  I’ve addressed the topic of truth in nonfiction in several talks and essays (including the foreword to the 2008 edition of The Best American Essays), maintaining essentially that unless the incidents or factual references are in some ways verifiable, we usually—short of confession or recantation—have no way of knowing whether a nonfiction writer is telling the truth
, especially when details remain unconfirmed, utterly private, or trivial. No one has ever verified the now famous deaths of George Orwell’s elephant or Virginia Woolf’s moth, though the passing of E. B. White’s poor pig can actually be documented.

  But truth in nonfiction involves more than accuracy, sincerity, documentation, or verifiability. Not all essays take the form of personal narratives that recount a string of events in a candid tone of voice; many offer personal opinions on various topics, whether general (growing old) or topical (health care). Most such nonnarrative essays pose a different set of criteria for assessing truth. In the territory of argument and exposition, we look at claims, evidence, consistency, and logical coherence. If all we can hope for in nonfiction narrative is verifiability, in opinion essays we demand validity. We want to see at the minimum that conclusions follow from premises. But testing the premises is another matter. Three essays, all demonstrating dramatically different opinions, can all be grounded in valid arguments.

  So, as useful as they are in establishing degrees of truth and truthfulness, verifiability and validity do not always take us very far. And, of course, they have little to do with the literary value of essays and creative nonfiction in general. I remember in college courses we made a rough distinction between the essay as a literary genre (whether belletristic or experimental) and the essay as functional prose that explained, proposed, persuaded, or argued. In my writing class we were asked to write both. I distinctly recall one assignment requiring a stylistic imitation of Addison and Steele’s Spectator papers, and another asking us to express an opinion about whether teachers should unionize. One instructor along the way called the later type “purposeful prose.” To appreciate the literary essay required the application of aesthetic criteria similar to those used for works of the imagination; to appreciate the purposeful essay it helped to know the rules of rhetoric.

  A useful rough distinction, but it’s not that simple. Too many essays emerge out of a blend of rhetoric and poetics, and the line between aesthetics and purpose can be blurry at best. When purposefully engaged in a topic, a talented essayist will still offer fresh observations and even surprising conclusions, and do so while attending closely to style and voice. The problem with most topical essays—especially those caught up in current controversies—is that from a literary standpoint they are usually predictable: the conclusions predictable, the prose predictable, the perspective predictable. By a stretch, we may still call these “essays,” but they don’t behave like essays that want to engage in the struggle of ideas, attack stale thought, or suggest new insights.

  I’ve come to think that one reason for the oppressive predictability of polemical essays can be found in today’s polarized social and political climate. To paraphrase Emerson: “If I know your party, I anticipate your argument.” Not merely about politics but about everything. Clearly this acrimonious state of affairs is not conducive to writing essays that display independent thought and complex perspectives. Most of us open magazines, newspapers, and websites knowing precisely what to expect. Many readers apparently enjoy being members of the choir. In our rancorously partisan environment, conclusions don’t follow from premises and evidence but precede them. Some classical fallacies I once learned and respected—ad hominem, hasty generalization, either-or reasoning, slippery slope, guilt by association—appear to be no longer flimsy fallacies but fundamental strategies of argument. It’s worrisome to think that we may be approaching a writing situation that worried Robert Frost: that thinking would become equivalent to voting.

  Such an opinionated, partisan atmosphere makes essaying a risky and endangered method of communication. The essay genre, as Montaigne invented and nurtured it, thrives on the attempt to see the multiple sides of issues and conflicts, to suspend judgments and conclusions, to entertain opposing opinions. That’s why he modestly called the work he was doing “essays,” that is, attempts, trials, thought experiments (but see John Jeremiah Sullivan’s introduction for a brilliant in-depth examination of Montaigne’s tricky term). For Montaigne, truth was essential, but it lived only in its quest. He perfectly describes his project in a late essay, “Of the Art of Discussion”: “I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds in me a bad soil to penetrate and take deep roots in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers with my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.” He goes on in the same essay (I’m relying on the Donald Frame translation) to condemn the self-satisfied “stupidity” of those who cling stubbornly and happily to their beliefs and opinions: “Nothing vexes me so much in stupidity as the fact that it is better pleased with itself than any reason can reasonably be. It is unfortunate that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and trust yourself, and always sends you away discontented and diffident, whereas opinionativeness and heedlessness fill their hosts with rejoicing and assurance.”

  For Montaigne, wisdom was not the product of accumulated knowledge—a convenient set of all the conclusions we’ve reached in life. Au contraire: wisdom instead meant developing the habit of continually and rigorously testing that accumulated knowledge. Some writers and readers today, I’m sure, still endorse Montaigne’s radically open-minded disposition, but how many would agree with John Stuart Mill’s even more radical way of assessing public opinion? In “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion,” an essay once well known and respected in academia, Mill famously wrote: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” Yet we see in the news nearly every day someone censured for “offensive,” “objectionable,” “inappropriate,” “unacceptable,” or “insensitive” remarks. Lately, each spring as I work on this annual foreword, I come across reports of commencement-day speakers who have had their campus invitations rescinded, usually because one group or another is “offended” by a speaker’s comments, beliefs, opinions, or affiliations.

  And as I write now, I see in the New York Times an item on a new college trend, “trigger warnings.” These, the Times explains, are “explicit alerts [to students] that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them.” I imagine these “triggers” would be boldly noted in a syllabus, like warnings on a pack of cigarettes. For Moby-Dick I see the following: Caution: this classic American novel depicts no women characters, graphically portrays the inhumane treatment of ocean wildlife, and features an obsessive amputee intent only upon pursuing and slaughtering a majestic sperm whale. Or Henry David Thoreau’s Walden: Caution: This noted work of nonfiction, though it shows respect for the environment, nevertheless may promote a life of self-reliance and antisocial behavior. Or Montaigne’s Essais: Caution: These essays may cause you to think about things you shouldn’t, which in turn may result in a disturbing sense of mental disorientation and ideological tolerance. Potentially upsetting incidents or information, of course, can be encountered not just in literature but in all kinds of reading. In “Someone Else” ([>]), Chris Offutt recalls feeling “uneasy” after reading an article in a psychology class about victims of sexual abuse, he having been one of them.

  One hopes that “trigger warnings”—however well-intentioned or psychologically prophylactic they might be—don’t indicate an American society becoming increasingly censorial and overly protective. I recall, growing up in the Catholic Church, how many educated people used to sneer at the index of forbidden books that “endangered faith and morals.” In my parochial high school the sisters told me that I could not read The Brothers Karamazov for a book report (I chose a safer book but sinned and read Brothers anyway, and my mind exploded). Will “trigger warnings” simply be a way of establishing a new secular index, a cautionary list of books and other works dangerous not for religious reasons but
because they may offend or upset certain groups or individuals or that contain material which can be viewed as insensitive or inappropriate? Would Grapes of Wrath be upsetting to someone with bad memories of rural poverty? Will the near future necessitate warning labels in front of all published material? Will future editions of The Best American Essays, for example, include a trigger warning in front of each selection so readers can avoid material that might upset them? And will trigger warnings in themselves eventually cause upsetting reactions, just the words and images sufficing to evoke unpleasant memories or anxious responses? Says our impressionable liberal arts student, “Why did you even mention cruelly harpooning sperm whales? Now I can’t sleep at night.”

  Until the censors control the day, I hope our intrepid readers will enjoy the essays collected here, despite their many unsettling subjects and themes. So, caution: you might feel your skin crawl as you read Leslie Jamison’s vivid depiction of a demonic disease; or completely shaken up by what happens in Ariel Levy’s hotel room during a Thanksgiving trip to Mongolia; or discomfited by John H. Culver’s visit to a Rome emergency room; or distressed by the vicious and systematic sexual abuse Barry Lopez suffered as a child; or wholly on edge with Jerald Walker’s tense dialectics of racism; or grossed out by the antics of Wells Towers’s unembarrassed old father at a drug-enhanced Nevada festival; or shocked by Kristen Dombek’s sexual candor; or disoriented by Lawrence Jackson’s dangerous trips through a Clockwork Orange–like Baltimore. Also in store are recurring nightmares, obsessive behavior, the fears and anxieties of aging, suicide, and—as they say in those infomercials—a whole lot more.