The Best American Essays 2021

Robert Atwan, Kathryn Schulz

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780358381754
• eBook ISBN:
  9780358381228
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

A collection of the year's best essays, selected by award-winning journalist and New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz

"The world is abundant even in bad times," guest editor Kathryn Schulz writes in her introduction, "it is lush with interestingness, and always, somewhere, offering up consolation or beauty or humor or happiness, or at least the hope of future happiness." The essays Schulz selected are a powerful time capsule of 2020, showcasing that even if our lives as we knew them stopped, the beauty to be found in them flourished. From an intimate account of nursing a loved one in the early days of the pandemic, to a masterful portrait of grieving the loss of a husband as the country grieved the loss of George Floyd, this collection brilliantly shapes the grief, hardship, and hope of a singular year.

The Best American Essays 2021 includes
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER • HILTON ALS • GABRIELLE HAMILTON • RUCHIR JOSHI • PATRICIA LOCKWOOD• CLAIRE MESSUD • WESLEY MORRIS • BETH NGUYEN • JESMYN WARD and others

Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2020

SELECTED BY ROBERT ATWAN

MARILYN ABILDSKOV

Krushchyovka, The Southern Review, 56/2

ANDRé ACIMAN

Adrift in Sunlit Night, The American Scholar, 89/3

KAZIM ALI

Naming Home, Ecotone, #29

BROOKE ALLEN

The Shakespeareans, The Hudson Review, 73/1

AMY AMOROSO

Your American Dream, Mount Hope, #17

SAM ANDERSON

Snowed Under, The New York Times Magazine, November 8

ANTONIA ANGRESS

A Secret Love Hidden in the Pages of The Price of Salt, Literary Hub, February 25

ROBERT ARCHAMBEAU

Concerning the Soul of Andy Warhol, Copper Nickel, #31–32

MEGAN J. ARLETT

On Castration, Prairie Schooner, 94/2

CHRIS ARTHUR

Listening to the Music of a Vulture’s Egg, Water-Stone Review, #23

JABARI ASIM

The Douglass Republic, The New Republic, September

RANA AWDISH

The Shape of the Shore, Intima, Fall

ANDRE BAGOO

In Praise of Corn-Pone Opinions, Electric Literature, January 29

JASMINE V. BAILEY

Destiny of Cumin, Ruminate, #54

AIMéE BAKER

Beasts of the Fields, Guernica, February 19

TIM BASCOM

Hiking into the Unknown, Under the Sun, #8

JACK BEATTY

The Cleopatra’s Nose of 1914, Lapham’s Quarterly, 13/2

NICKY BEER

My Brother Says “What the Fuck” The Cincinnati Review, 17/2

S. G. BELKNAP

Lovers in the Hands of a Patient God, The Point, #23

ALLISON FIELD BELL

The Body, the Onion: A Balagan, Shenandoah, 69/2

GABRIELLE BELLOT

The Curious Language of Grief, Catapult, March 11

ROSALIND BENTLEY

The Blessing and Burden of Forever, Oxford American, #109–110

HEATHER BRITTAIN BERGSTROM

Valley, Narrative, January 17

EMILY BERNARD

From the Stranger in Me to the Stranger in You, Image, #106

ERICA BERRY

Everything Bright Is Something Buried, The Yale Review, 108/3

ANDREA BIANCHI

Fade from Red, Witness, 33/3

SVEN BIRKERTS

Serendipity: Notebook, Arrowsmith, September 29

TOM BISSELL

Nabokov’s Rocking Chair: Lolita at the Movies, ZYZZYVA, #119

SEBASTIAN BITTICKS

Terra Incognita, Chautauqua, #17

GEORGE BLECHER

Ghosts on the Landing, Tiferet Journal, Spring/Summer

GARRETT BLISS

Accumulations, Tahoma Literary Review, #18

LUCIENNE S. BLOCH

Inside Stories, Five Points, 20/2

LOUISE A. BLUM

How It Ends, The Sun, #531

MICHAEL BOGAN

Indiana, Summer, 1984, Indiana Review, 42/1

JASWINDER BOLINA

Color Coded, Shenandoah, 69/2

SARI BOREN

He’s a Rope, Sycamore Review, 31/2

BRITTANY BORGHI

A Delicate Strength, The Iowa Review, 50/1

ZOE BOSSIERE

Fear in the Time of the Javelina, Guernica, May 13

JENNY BOULLY

I Want This to Be True, The Georgia Review, 74/4

CHRISTINE BOYER

Second Person, Tahoma Literary Review, #19

WILL BRIDGES

Bloodlines and Bitter Syrup, Creative Nonfiction, #73

REBECCA BRILL

On Gurning, Colorado Review, 47/2

VICTOR BROMBERT

In Praise of Jealousy? Raritan, 40/2

DAVID BROOKS

The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake, The Atlantic, March

K...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Guest Editors of the Best American Essays
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Introduction
• ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: The Trayvon Generation
• HILTON ALS: Homecoming
• MOLLY MCCULLY BROWN: The Broken Country
• AGNES CALLARD: Acceptance Parenting
• GABRIELLE HAMILTON: The Kitchen Is Closed
• TONY HOAGLAND: Bent Arrows: On Anticipation of My Approaching Disappearance
• GREG JACKSON: Vicious Cycles
• RUCHIR JOSHI: Clarity
• AMY LEAC: Oh Latitudo
• PATRICIA LOCKWOOD: Insane After Coronavirus?
• BARRY LOPEZ: Love in a Time of Terror
• JESSICA LUSTIG: What I Learned When My Husband Got Sick with Coronavirus
• DAWN LUNDY MARTIN: What Money Can’t Buy
• CLAIRE MESSUD: Two Women
• WESLEY MORRIS: My Mustache
• BETH NGUYEN: Apparent
• FINTAN O’TOOLE: The Designated Mourner
• MAX READ: Going Postal
• DARIEL SUAREZ: In Orbit
• JESMYN WARD: Witness and Respair
• Contributors’ Notes
• Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2020
• Notable Special Issues of 2020
• Read More from the Best American Series
• About the Authors
• Connect on Social Media
• Footnotes