The Best American Essays 2020

André Aciman

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780358359913
• eBook ISBN:
  9780358358589
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

A collection of the year's best essays selected by André Aciman, author of the worldwide bestseller  Call Me by Your Name.
"An essay is the child of uncertainty," André Aciman contends in his introduction to  The Best American Essays 2020. "The struggle to write what one hopes is entirely true, and the long incubation every piece of writing requires of a writer who is thinking difficult thoughts, are what ultimately give the writing its depth, its magnitude, its grace." The essays Aciman selected center on people facing moments of deep uncertainty, searching for a greater truth. From a Black father's confrontation of his son's illness, to a divorcée's transcendent experience with strangers, to a bartender grieving the tragic loss of a friend, these stories are a master class not just in essay writing but in empathy, artfully imbuing moments of hardship with understanding and that elusive grace. 
The Best American 2020 Essays includes  RABIH ALAMEDDINE • BARBARA EHRENREICH • LESLIE JAMISON JAMAICA KINCAID • ALEX MARZANO-LESNEVICH • A. O. SCOTT • JERALD WALKER • STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS and others 
 

Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2019

SELECTED BY ROBERT ATWAN

Marilyn Abildskov

Confetti, The Cincinnati Review, 16/1

Alice Abraham

Holding Patterns, n+1, #34

Kim Adrian

Ten Conversations About My Struggle, The Gettysburg Review, 32/1

Marcia Aldrich

Trina’s Voice, Zone 3, 34/2

Tara McCarthey Altebrando

What’s a Good Playlist for Fighting Cancer?Slate, July 11

Heather Altfeld

A Scribe from the Double House of Life, Conjunctions, #72

Abe Amidor

Diary of a Triage Patient, The Antioch Review, 77/3

Stephanie Anderson

Atlas, Hotel Amerika, #17

Anna Andrew

Five Ways to Eat Termites, The Bare Life Review, #3

Donald Antrim

Everywhere and Nowhere, The New Yorker, February 18 & 25

Chloe Aridjis

Insomnia Begins in the Cradle, Harvard Review, #54

David Armand

Mirrors, Belmont Story Review, #4

Jason Arment

Flame and Fortune, Eclectica, 23/3

Chris Arthur

Voice Box, The Dalhousie Review, 99/2

Timothy Aubry

To Be Continued, The Point, #20

Karen Babine

Little Houses, Ascent, October 13

C. Moran Babst

The House of Myth: On the Architecture of White Supremacy, Oxford American, #104

Poe Ballantine

Nomads, The Sun, January

Taneum Bambrick

Sturgeon, Booth, #13

Rita Banerjee

Birth of Cool, Hunger Mountain, #23

Daniel Barnum

Natality: Moon/Sun/Stars, Hayden’s Ferry Review, #64

Rick Bass

Fifteen Dogs, Narrative, May 11

Grace Bauer

A Tomb of One’s Own, Ascent, October 13

Jo Anne Bennett

Jamilla, The Missouri Review, 42/1

Cicily Bennion

About Boredom, Mount Hope, #16

Emily Bernard

Stereopticon: Twelve Ways of Looking at My Mother, The Yale Review, 107/4

Erica Berry

Like a Shipwreck, Fourth Genre, 21/1

Natalie Berry

Over the Edge & Off the Map, Alpinist, #65

Andrew Bertaina

My Daughter and I Discuss God and Puns, Forge, November 11

Sven Birkerts

Losing, Finding, Improvising, Agni, #89

Mary Birnbaum

Owosso, Crazyhorse, #96

Bridget Boland

Spectator Mourning, Hypertext, #4

Marianne Boruch

The Great Silence, The Georgia Review, Fall

Gayle Brandeis

Eating the Food of the Dead, The Normal School, 12/1

Taffy Brodesser-Akner

My Guide to Marriage? A TV Classic, New York Times, June 5

David Brooks

Writing Animals, Kenyon Review, 41/6

David Brown

Orwell’s Last Neighborhood, The American Scholar, Spring

Julia Michie Bruckner

Harvest Moon, Bellevue Literary Review, #36

Andrea J. Buchanan

Two Hearts, Kenyon Review, 41/4

Linda Buckmaster

Caught Out, Upstreet, #15

Jessica Burstein

Salinger: The New One, Raritan, 38/3

Amy Butcher

Flight Path, Sonora Review, September

Agnes Callard

Half a Person, The Point, #20

Paul A. Cantor

Harold Bloom 1930–2019...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Introduction
• RABIH ALAMEDDINE: How to Bartend
• ELVIS BEGO: Ghost Museum
• RACHEL CUSK: Driving as Metaphor
• BARBARA EHRENREICH: The Humanoid Stain
• GARY FINCKE: After the Three-Moon Era
• RON HUETT: Cosmic Latte
• LESLIE JAMISON: A Street Full of Splendid Strangers
• JAMAICA KINCAID: A Letter to Robinson Crusoe
• JOSEPH LEO KOERNER: Maly Trostinets
• ALEX MARZANO-LESNEVICH: Body Language
• CLINTON CROCKETT PETERS: A Thing About Cancer
• SUSAN FOX ROGERS: The Other Leopold
• MATTHEW SALESSES: To Grieve Is to Carry Another Time
• PETER SCHJELDAHL: 77 Sunset Me
• A. O. SCOTT: Under the Sign of Susan
• LIONEL SHRIVER: Semantic Drift
• MARK SULLIVAN: Ode al Vento Occidentale
• MARK SUNDEEN: Holiday Review
• ALISON TOWNSEND: My Pink Lake and Other Digressions
• DAVID L. ULIN: Bed
• JERLALD WALKER: Breathe
• STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS: The Unfound Door
• PHILIP WEINSTEIN: Soul-Error
• ELIZABETH WINKLER: Was Shakespeare a Woman?
• Contributors’ Notes
• Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2019
• Notable Special Issues of 2019
• Read More from the Best American Series
• About the Editors
• Connect with HMH
• Footnotes