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A review by marireadstoomuch
The Best American Essays 2024 by Wesley Morris
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
2.75
This was an odd one for me, personally. I’m an avid essay reader so figured this collection would be an easy go for me (albeit perhaps unlikely to fulfill the second task of “accessible essays to assign to students” given the lengths of many of the pieces).
I found myself really enjoying some essays and completely disconnecting from others. I believe “The Ones We Sent Away” by Jennifer Senior was my standout, dealing with the particularly tricky subject position of speaking on disability and systemic abuses of disabled people historically as an able-bodied and neurotypical author. I also enjoyed and was enriched by some others (I think James Wharton Jr’s “An Upset Place” was notable here). The final essay — “A Rewilding” by Christienne L Hinz — was a fundamental delight that shone through my foul mood (caused by another essay that so put me out). Finally, Jennifer Sinor’s “The Lives of Bryan” reached my own personal experience in a resonant way, and I think captured the immediacy of grief in a way that felt textured and real.
There was one particular essay that I reacted viscerally against, not because I disagreed with the premise or necessarily the conclusion, but because the ideological framing of the piece (seen in its language use and approach to its topic/underlying assumptions) was ethically untenable to me in 2024. (To be sure I wasn’t being overly sensitive, I Googled the author and determined his political views ran at odds with his own essay’s assertions about the importance of the archive of cultural memory.) It didn’t color the bulk of the collection as it’s quite late on, but it did shape my mood — making me probably a bit unfair on some of the last pieces.
In general these things are a matter of taste, and perhaps my own taste overlaps and diverges dramatically from Morris’s in some areas — some authorial voices frankly annoyed me so much that I struggled to take their content seriously. More than anything, this book has made me re-think my general enjoyment of essays; it seems I am far pickier than I had thought.
I found myself really enjoying some essays and completely disconnecting from others. I believe “The Ones We Sent Away” by Jennifer Senior was my standout, dealing with the particularly tricky subject position of speaking on disability and systemic abuses of disabled people historically as an able-bodied and neurotypical author. I also enjoyed and was enriched by some others (I think James Wharton Jr’s “An Upset Place” was notable here). The final essay — “A Rewilding” by Christienne L Hinz — was a fundamental delight that shone through my foul mood (caused by another essay that so put me out). Finally, Jennifer Sinor’s “The Lives of Bryan” reached my own personal experience in a resonant way, and I think captured the immediacy of grief in a way that felt textured and real.
There was one particular essay that I reacted viscerally against, not because I disagreed with the premise or necessarily the conclusion, but because the ideological framing of the piece (seen in its language use and approach to its topic/underlying assumptions) was ethically untenable to me in 2024. (To be sure I wasn’t being overly sensitive, I Googled the author and determined his political views ran at odds with his own essay’s assertions about the importance of the archive of cultural memory.) It didn’t color the bulk of the collection as it’s quite late on, but it did shape my mood — making me probably a bit unfair on some of the last pieces.
In general these things are a matter of taste, and perhaps my own taste overlaps and diverges dramatically from Morris’s in some areas — some authorial voices frankly annoyed me so much that I struggled to take their content seriously. More than anything, this book has made me re-think my general enjoyment of essays; it seems I am far pickier than I had thought.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Genocide, Racism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Grief