The Contemporary American Essay

Table Of Contents

Introduction by Phillip Lopate

“I Am the Happiness of This World” by Hilton Als
“One Summer” by Nicholson Baker
”Portrait of the Bagel as a Young Man” by Thomas Beller 
“Brave Face” by Sven Birkerts       
Excerpt from “On Immunity” by Eula Biss     
“Tactless” by Mary Cappello          
“Decreation” by Anne Carson         
“Home Alone” by Terry Castle       
“Girl” by Alexander Chee        
“Black Body” by Teju Cole
“Greedy Sleep” by Bernard Cooper
“The Doctor Is a Woman” by Sloane Crosley      
“Loitering” by Charles D’Ambrosio            
“Matricide” by Meghan Daum        
“Joyas Voladoras” by Brian Doyle
“Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (with particular reference to Doughnut Plant doughnuts)” by Geoff Dyer          
“CID–LAX–BOG” by Lina Ferreira                
“Doing No Harm: Some Thoughts on Reading and Writing in the Age of Umbrage” by Lynn Freed 
“The Case of the Angry Daughter” by Rivka Galchen      
“Scat” by Ross Gay    
“On Revenge” by Louise Glück      
“Faculty Wife” by Emily Fox Gordon    
“Other People’s Secrets” by Patricia Hampl          
“The Aquarium” by Aleksandar Hemon     
“The Terror of Love” by Samantha Irby    
“The Empathy Exams” by Leslie Jamison    
“Negroland” by Margo Jefferson    
“Domestic Gulags” by Laura Kipnis          
“Ann: Death and the Maiden” by David Lazar           
“Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life” by Yiyun Li      
“Experience Necessary” by Phillip Lopate            
“The Invitation” by Barry Lopez    
“Bodies in Motion and at Rest” by Thomas Lynch           
“Draft No. 4” by John McPhee        
“Failure: A Meditation, Another Iteration (With Interruptions)” by Anders Monson
“Live Through That?!” by Eileen Myles      
Excerpt from The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson   
“Homeschool” by Meghan O’Gieblyn        
“A Visit to San Quentin” by Joyce Carol Oates    
“Busted in New York” by Darryl Pinckney           
“Against ‘Gunmetal’” by Lia Purpura        
“Beeper World” by Karen Russell  
“This Old House” by David Sedaris           
“Differences: Sex, Separateness & Marriage” by Shifra Sharlin
“Information Sickness” by David Shields        
“Gray Area: Thinking With a Damaged Brain” by Floyd Skloot      
“Cassandra Among the Creeps” by Rebecca Solnit          
“Eric Garner and Me” by Clifford Thompson        
“We Out Here” by Wesley Yang