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The Best American Essays 2018

Hilton Als (Editor)

3.51 · Rating details · 289 ratings · 56 reviews

The Pulitzer–Prize winning and Guggenheim-honored Hilton Als curates the best essays from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites, bringing “the fierce style of street reading and the formal tradition of critical inquiry, reads culture, race, and gender” (New York Times) to the task.

“The essay, like love, like life, is indefinable, but you know an essay when you see ...more

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Paperback, 336 pages

Published October 2nd 2018 by Mariner Books

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Mar 20, 2020 Ann-Marie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

There are a couple of essays on this collection that made me sit up and take notice. Rick Moody's "Notes on Lazarus," and John Seabrook's "My Father's Cellar" impressed me. A couple caught my interest even though they were about things in which I have little interest. "The Big Thing on His Mind", Thomas Powers' article about William Faulkner proved to be more than I expected.
There were one of two essays I didn't enjoy, but others might, so I won't mention them.
On the whole, this volume is cons ...more

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Jan 19, 2019 Joe Kraus rated it really liked it

Shelves: creative-nonfiction

I read this volume most years, and I realize I’ve been coming to it, metaphorically, the way you might go to an office holiday party. That is, part of me wants to go – I enjoy good essays, and I enjoy a good party – but another part of me dreads it. It means having fun on someone else’s schedule; it means being in the middle of something and being called upon to share the larger emotion. (And it means thinking about how I want to use it in my upcoming class.)

I’m happy to say that this is one of I read this volume most years, and I realize I’ve been coming to it, metaphorically, the way you might go to an office holiday party. That is, part of me wants to go – I enjoy good essays, and I enjoy a good party – but another part of me dreads it. It means having fun on someone else’s schedule; it means being in the middle of something and being called upon to share the larger emotion. (And it means thinking about how I want to use it in my upcoming class.)

I’m happy to say that this is one of the stronger volumes in the series, one of the better parties. (It may fall a bit short of 2006, but then Lauren Slater may be the best essayist we have going.) As usual, our host is Bob Atwan, and that’s a good thing. I like Atwan as a writer and as a thinker about the essay form, and I like him as a teacher and person. I worked briefly with him more than a decade ago, and he has been considerate and responsive any time I’ve had to reach out to him since. This whole series is his brainchild, and he’s built it from a good idea into arguably the central event of the genre every year.

Our caterer is Hilton Als. I’ve admired Als through his work in earlier volumes of the series, but I haven’t always felt in step with him. He’s written a couple pieces I’ve thought worthy of sharing with students (a high honor) but I’ve also felt as if I weren’t quite picking up on all his cues and references. I worried he’d select from among Atwan’s semi-final suggestions some essays that wore their difficulty on their sleeves. I prefer the essay that glides, and I prefer the essay that begins with the personal and moves into the public or political. (To be fair, Als writes that way himself; he just sometimes moves into the public in a rhythm that catches me off guard.)

To be fair, nothing makes it into any of these volumes without being pretty good, but I’m always on the lookout for the personal essay as opposed to the topical, political, or analytical. That’s what I’m teaching – how an essayist can open up to the world – but it’s also often more satisfying. If you can make something compelling from your own compulsions, well, you’ve done it all without a net.

In this case, Als is broad in the different pieces he’s selected, but everything has a touch of the personal. I’m glad to find that even the ones steeped in research give a glimpse of the thinker/essayist beneath. There’s something to enjoy about the self even in the essays by Baron Wormser or Leslie Jamison, ones that generally report on, respectively, Hannah Arendt and the women’s march on Washington.

There are people here whom, to keep the party metaphor alive, I generally try to stay on the other side of the room from. There’s Noam Chomsky, for instance. He’s often irritating not so much because he’s right – which he often is – but because he seems always to be hectoring. He’s a progenitor of a certain kind of political purity; you’re with him or you’re against him. I’ve read his work and felt an intolerance of perspective; I may also disdain the perspective, but I don’t have the same impatience or judgement for it. This time, at this party, he’s well-behaved, though. His piece on climate change as existential threat is, oddly, milder in tone than I’m used to. He is as correct as he usually is, but he’s simply less obnoxious about it.

And over there is Rick Moody. He’s that weird guy, the one you don’t feel comfortable admitting you have a lot in common with. He can be self-indulgent – and his tangent here about his thoughts on Nick Cave’s one-time guitar playing certainly feel that way – but he’s onto something with his “Notes on Lazarus.” For much of this, as with the best essays, you feel a restless mind at work, one that slowly moves toward something like peace. Moody doesn’t exactly do peace – at the very least, in what I’ve read, he’s attacking the form of his genre – but he catches a powerful wave and invites us to ride it with him for a while.

As far as I’m concerned, the best of these are the ones by Marilyn Abildskov, Beth Uznis Johnson, and Kathryn Schulz. The first is a clever and moving depersonalization; Abildskov tells the story of a near relationship through the technical challenges of weaving a story. In hers, Johnson explores a “friendship” she finds with the mutual friend of someone who committed suicide. Through the weirdness of Facebook, they’re “introduced” by the dead friend, and the echoes are moving. And Schulz starts with a seemingly light series of reflections about what it means to “lose” things in the sense of misplacing them, and then somehow ratchets it into a beautiful meditation on losing her father.

Beyond those excellent ones, there really are no stinkers at all in this collection. Granting that, in this context, there’s something to admire in anything Atwan awards semi-finalist standing, there aren’t any here that turn me off with their self-indulgence, esoteric tone, or pretentiousness. Three home runs is about the average for me in reading these anthologies, but there are usually at least a couple “stinkers.” Given that most of the others I haven’t mentioned are also very impressive (I think of the terribly sad, posthumous essay by David Wong Louie in particular) this is certainly worth picking up.
...more

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Oct 22, 2018 Chris rated it liked it

Shelves: essays

I’ve been reading these collections for several years now and I’m not sure how likely I am to continue. At least a few essays used to really grab me. Last few years? Eh. Not so much. The weird thing is this collection doesn’t even seem bad and the intro essay, Hilton Als piece of the day-to-day exhaustion of racism and the difficulty of slinging ‘fuck you’s back at the world, is fantastic.

Is it me? Is it the collection? Is it the sordid state of world!?? I’m not sure.

Anyway, here’s my favorites: I’ve been reading these collections for several years now and I’m not sure how likely I am to continue. At least a few essays used to really grab me. Last few years? Eh. Not so much. The weird thing is this collection doesn’t even seem bad and the intro essay, Hilton Als piece of the day-to-day exhaustion of racism and the difficulty of slinging ‘fuck you’s back at the world, is fantastic.

Is it me? Is it the collection? Is it the sordid state of world!?? I’m not sure.

Anyway, here’s my favorites:

The Art at the End of the World by Heidi Julavits — I liked this essay when I read it and I like it even more as I reflect on it. Our narrator drags her husband and two kids out to the Great Salt Lake, where sometime in the 70s, a peculiar land artist created a sort of jetty that spirals into the water. He did so intentionally during a drought so it can be seen only rarely. The family’s trip is heavily inspired by Julavits’ childhood on the coast of Maine, during the height of the Cold War and imminent threat of nuclear annihilation. Being at the edge of the world in Maine, she could easily imagine apocalyptic wastelands. Now, under threat of the effects of climate change, she wants her children, who live a city life far from the end of the world, to become equipped to imagine the end of all (most) things. The Great Salt Lake and a sometimes-seen artwork is the avenue for this. How to prepare for likely mass destruction? Learn to cope with the wasteland. Good stuff.

The Other Steve Harvey by Steve Harvey— No, he’s not that Steve Harvey, man of the wondrous ‘stache, though on the phone he is confused as such. This Harvey’s essay about the face we put to the world and all the assumptions that come with it, and more importantly, the assumptions we make based purely on the faces we see on others is excellent. Musings on Trayvon Martin and Barrack Obama follow. How to make it so the first thing a person notices about another person is not that they are black is the question here, of which Harvey doesn’t have much of an answer as he repeatedly fails at trying to achieve it.

My Father’s Cellar by John Seabrook — In a spectacular effort to imitate the upper crust of England, Seabrook’s father has a highly prized, lovingly crafted wine cellar in the basement of their house. The locked door is hidden behind a bookcase, and when later the cellar is expanded, the second set of rooms is behind a fake brick wall. It’s almost immediately obvious here that Seabrook the child will become Seabrook the alcoholic, but this isn’t an essay whose strength is revelation. Instead, it’s a remarkably well drawn slice of life. I feel like I walked through that cellar, feel like I met Seabrook Sr.

This was originally published at The Scrying Orb. ...more

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Nov 20, 2018 Ctgt rated it liked it

Like most collections some of these essays really struck a chord while others never moved me. I will say there was a nice variety of essays including art, fashion, wine, politics, fashion....life. Hopefully you will find something you enjoy.
Here were my favorites;
The Other Steve Harvey by Steven Harvey from Michigan Quarterly Review. An inner examination by the author of his attitudes toward race and race relations.

The March on Everywhere by Leslie Jameson from Harper's Magazine about the author ...more

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Mar 06, 2020 Shemaiah Gonzalez added it

These annual collections of The Best American Essays should be required reading for any Creative Non-Fiction writer. The collection runs the gamut of topics and styles and serves as inspiration for those of us that aspire to join the greats. Two essays “Eat, Memory” and “Notes on Lazarus” stuck out for me.

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Jul 29, 2018 Jaime rated it really liked it

I am generally a big fan of the Best American series. The past few years of the Essay books have been iffy, and this....was good, but I would have liked to have seen more women, and more...I can’t put my finger on it, but when I think of the years that I really loved, the topics were more personal, more accessible. More essays taken from indie lit journals or unexpected places, rather than the New Yorker or NYRB or Lapham’s or NYT magazine or the usual lit mags. I know each editor brings their o ...more

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Nov 07, 2018 Iva rated it really liked it

The 2018 collection contains many excellent essays. It begins with a sprawling introduction by editor Hilton Als which later was printed in the New Yorker. Many of these essays have come from the east coast such as The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Massachusetts Review and The Harvard Review. Especially memorable were:
John Seabrook - My Father's Cellar
David Won Louie - Eat, memory
Suki Kim - Land of Darkness
...more

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Jan 03, 2019 Mark rated it liked it · review of another edition

Good collection

Skipped a few essays on topics that didn't grab me, but that Hannah Arendt one is 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 ...more

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Jul 12, 2019 Scott Bilodeau rated it liked it

I first discovered the "Best American" series of series last year when I picked up a book of "Best American Travel Writing". It was a wonderful collection of manageable, published vignettes written by various, not so well known American authors. This particular one focuses on essays. The guest author who writes the introduction that sets the stage indicated that the essays loosely deal with the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election and all of the horrible things that have come of it. Bu I first discovered the "Best American" series of series last year when I picked up a book of "Best American Travel Writing". It was a wonderful collection of manageable, published vignettes written by various, not so well known American authors. This particular one focuses on essays. The guest author who writes the introduction that sets the stage indicated that the essays loosely deal with the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election and all of the horrible things that have come of it. But the essays mostly have nothing to do with the election. They instead focus on a much more micro level and reveal struggles, both internal and with the external world, that these authors have faced, are currently facing, or are grappling with. The first handful were so moving and heart-felt that I began recommending the book to anyone I thought might be interested. One, entitled "The Other Steve Harvey" starts off comically about the author's humorous, coincidental experience of sharing the same name with a famous game show host with whom the author has almost nothing in common. But then a change in tone occurs and other subheadings for sections appear such as "The Other Trayvon Martin", which references a speech that Barack Obama gave when he says that what happened could have easily happened to him at a younger age. And the essay continues along the same strain. Another begins with the author pouring over the pictures of a facebook friend, as she deduces things about his life. I assumed it was going to be an essay about how we have become so distanced from each other that exercises like this have created an empty replacement for true intimacy. Instead, what is revealed is that the author's friend has taken his life and she is trying desperately to find answers in any way that she can to make sense of it all and to see if she could have noticed something - anything - that would have clued her in before the fact. Another was about the women's march that took place shortly after the inauguration of the person currently sitting in the White House. In it, the author speaks of how we oftentimes equate protest with the loud pronouncements or the messages in the media or crowd size or whatever but it's just as much the mess that is the lack of organization, the broken cell phone dropped on the ground, the sore feet and back, etc. The book started out so strong that I was anticipating it to be one of the best books I would have read in years. But alas, the writings lost steam for me after the first handful. There were a number of duds and a few really good ones afterwards - one that was a very insightful detailing of the thought process behind the author's struggle with her gambling addiction. Another was about how an author had to feed himself via a feeding tube because of a cancer operation and had lost the ability to physically eat as it no longer served a purpose for him. As a result, he had also lost the joy of going to a restaurant and sharing a meal with family or friends. The essays that were heartfelt were the ones that moved me the most. But one thing I noticed about almost all of them is that I found the endings to be almost entirely unsatisfying. It's like they got this rhythm going and then the words just stopped without any resolution or tie-in or gratifying period at the end of a sentence. As if they were telling you something and they let their voice trail off mid-sentence without completing the thought. It made me wonder afterwards. Does that say something about me? About these authors? About essay writing in general? Unfortunately that feeling transferred to the book at large. I'm still glad I read the really great essays that I did read and I liked the book overall but in the end, I felt a bit disappointed that the book didn't end up being the awesome book I originally thought it was going to be and instead just ended up being ok. ...more

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Jan 29, 2019 Chris DiLeo rated it it was amazing

A month ago, I was in the mood to read essays. Not my students' essays, mind you, but professional, well-crafted works that probe the mysteries of the universe and the soul. A genuinely good (meaning: insightful, significant, and in some [even small] way, profound) essay is one of the great pleasures of the literate person's life. At least it is for me. Fiction will always be my first and most enduring love, and poetry is, as I creep into middle age, a frequent flirt, promising a momentary seduc ...more

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Mar 10, 2019 Kurt rated it really liked it

Here were my two favorite essays from BAE2018:

—Leslie Jamison's "The March on Everywhere" (https://harpers.org/archive/2017/04/t...) about the the Women's March, but more broadly the shape of activism in one's life
—Kathryn Schulz's "Losing Streak" (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...) about 'loss', mostly that of her father

I loved several more. An essay about a memory of a UFO, for example, changed the way I think about the relationship between parents and children. Others I skipped or ski ...more

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Nov 09, 2018 Danielle rated it it was ok

I love reading Best American series while I travel because they feel less prone to interruption. I can finish a story or an essay while I'm sitting at the gate, waiting for take-off, in the time before beverages are served. I have time to puzzle over what I just read. But I found myself becoming increasingly impatient with the essays selected for BAE 2018. Hilton Als writes in his introduction: "Indeed, the essays I'm attracted to ... have something unfinished about them, a circle that cannot be ...more

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May 31, 2019 Andrew Bertaina added it

I prefer this iteration of The Best American Essays to the last one I read, edited by Franzen, which gave a strong preference to journalistic pieces. I love a good journalism essay, but I tend to write personal essays and this volume is full of personal essays. The essay, "Losing Streak," by Kathryn Schulz was my favorite in the entire volume, but I found many others to love including You are the Phenomenology by Timothy O'Keefe, Luck You by Sherry Simpson and Hannah Arendt in New York by Baron ...more

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Jun 01, 2019 Drinkinwookie rated it it was amazing

I gave it five stars since there were at least 6 essays that were absolutely great:

Suki Kim's about going to North Korea
the one about the guy who has to have food injected into him for medical reasons
the one about losing things
the one about political protests
the one about gambling
the one about those marching songs in the military

Most of the rest were good or at least had some good or interesting about them. It's nice reading essays if, like me, you are generally a book reader as an essay rarely ...more

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Jan 07, 2019 Anie rated it really liked it

Shelves: essays, female-author, own, male-author, non-fiction, 2019

A lovely collection of essays. There were a few in here that didn't really speak to me, but the majority of this collection is super-solid -- thought-provoking and enjoyable both. ...more

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Feb 03, 2019 Jeff rated it liked it

This is a solid collection, like many anthologies the good stories are very, very good and the others are much less so. This collection of essays features some that are superb.

Noam Chomsky’s essay “ Prospects For Survival “ from The Massachusetts Review offers a sobering look at human behavior, and our prospects because of it. He speaks to the theory that more advanced societies have a much shorter life span than simpler ones. The KISS theory manifest.

As Chomsky writes “ The most successful or ...more

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Apr 16, 2019 Marian rated it liked it

Shelves: essays, anthology, read2019

As usual, a very mixed bag, read because I like to see what characterizes essays chosen as "the best"; basically a fool's errand.

A fair number of these can be accessed online, including some of the best such as the Jennifer Kabat essay (my very favorite, and truly transportive) and the Heidi Julavits. Both integrate the subject of climate change with other concerns, personal, familial, or historical. Perhaps surprisingly, only one other piece speaks to climate change (Chomsky's); it does so from ...more

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Jan 07, 2019 Jake Johnson rated it it was ok

Disappointing set. Many of the works included might be better considered simply nonfiction narratives with a rare nod towards making a point. Often, however, these stories don't get much further than relating what the writer has experienced. The disappointment is perhaps accented by what those of us aware of the larger world have experienced in 2018--a corrupt administration, terrfying changes in environmental policy and tax laws, attacks on the rule of law, assaults on serious newspapers and te ...more

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Mar 16, 2019 N rated it liked it

This is a fairly standard BAE volume, with some goodies and some snoozers. According to my checkmark rating system (1 for good essays, 2 for great, 3 for fantastic), this volume contains 7 I'd happily revisit:

1 Checkmark
Paul Crenshaw's "Cadence"
Steven Harvey's "The Other Steve Harvey"
Beth Uznis Johnson's "Your Friend/My Friend, Ted"
David Wong Louie's "Eat, Memory"
Kathryn Schulz's "Losing Streak"
Sherry Simpson's "Lucky You"

2 Checkmarks
Leslie Jamison's "The March on Everywhere"

The front material ...more

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Dec 11, 2019 christina rated it it was ok

Shelves: for-teaching-assigned-reading, collections, essays, non-fiction

As with most BAE essays, most of the essays collected here are narrative, which makes this collection merely decent.

I personally find that most narrative essays somewhat self-indulgent and often don't alight on any real poignancy, which is to say that a well-written narrative essay is extremely difficult to write that isn't overtly self-indulgent while also offering insight that could not be had had the essayist had not presented his narrative in the particular way that they did. Good examples ...more

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Jan 04, 2020 Michael rated it it was ok

This collection was a little flat for me. Many of the essays lacked new or unique insights and observations. Some were just inaccessible. Overall, I thought the collection was grim and kind of dull. There were three that I thought succeeded in at least being interesting and revelatory (to me, anyhow). Those are "The Big Thing On His Mind" by Thomas Powers which has a fascinating though debatable theory of the works of William Faulkner. I very much enjoyed "No Direction Home: The Journey of Frant ...more

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Nov 05, 2018 Art rated it did not like it

Shelves: essays, anthologies, published-2018

Essays evolved five hundred years go as a new form of expression, characterizing an open and inquiring mind. But will the essay survive in a dogmatic era such as our own times, ponders Robert Atwan, the editor of this series, now in its thirty-third year.

The guest editor receives a hundred essays from the hundreds screened by Atwan during the year. The guest may add a few then makes the final selection.

Not one of the two dozen entries in this year’s collection connected with me. Nothing notewo ...more

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Apr 21, 2019 Aimee Barnes Pestano rated it really liked it

This anthology is a mixed bag, with something for nearly everyone, although the political diversity is lacking which doesn't surprise me given America's current climate.
David Wong Louie's "Eat, Memory," a contemplation on food after not eating for six years due to throat cancer, is a standout that's worth reading more than once. I'm sad to learn that he's passed away- what a brilliant writer. Edwidge Dandicat's "All the Home You've Got" is also one to read slowly and meditate upon. I was confus ...more

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Jan 04, 2019 Myles rated it liked it

Perfectly fine sampler of essays for a flight from New York to SF. As usual, the best cover race (Als, Harvey) and political currents (Jameson, Mujmudar).

The worst are self-aggrandizing (Seabrook), tragically edited down (the Faulkner profile) or completely vapid (Salle).

Rick Moody does his usual Rick Moody dance in an essay on Lazarus of Bethany, starting narrow before lavishing us with fascinating tangents that allow him to avoid getting personal. It's like peeling an orange and finding a wh ...more

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Jun 20, 2019 Emily Green rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, library-books

I read The Best American Essays 2018 in part because I enjoy reading the best American series, but more because I wanted to teach an essay to my students. I was not overly impressed by the anthology. Some of the essays were just plain boring. I suppose that is part of the excitement of the best American series—some are great and some are so sad. Usually, there are at least a few that I enjoy and a few were pretty interesting, but there aren’t any that I would relish rereading.

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Dec 20, 2018 Jim Manis rated it really liked it

Shelves: essays

I've read every edition of The Best American Essays, but this one didn't quite ring my bell as loudly as previous editions have. Some criticism has focused on the publication's attempt to display more diversity. This doesn't bother me at all. I can't quite place my finger on the problem. Thus I'm reduced to a series of clichés. ...more

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Sep 22, 2019 Eileen rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2019

I usually get to this collection much earlier in the year, but it took me longer to get through this set. Good thing I'm done though, as I have pre-ordered 2019's which comes out in October.

***½ this year for me. Definitely some standouts, and some were harder to get through. But I'm always glad I took the time to read this collection. ...more

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Jan 02, 2019 John Modica rated it really liked it

My favorites: Hilton Als' "Introduction;" Marilyn Abildskov, "The Trick: Notes Toward a Theory of Plot;" Heidi Julavits, "The Art at the End of the World;" Jennifer Kabat, "Rain Like Cotton;" David Wong Louie, "Eat, Memory;" Rick Moody, "Notes on Lazarus;" Kathryn Schultz, "Losing Streak." ...more

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Jan 08, 2019 Gena Radcliffe rated it liked it

A much more dry and academic collection than in years past, with a couple reading almost like grad school papers. The more personal ones (David Wong Louie's "Eat, Memory" in particular) make it worth a read, though. ...more

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Mar 02, 2019 Whitney rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Someone in one of these essays says something about being allergic to style....I don’t remember which one....and I think that’s indicative of the collection. I might also be allergic to style, which in many of these essays feels like a tangent.

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About Hilton Als

Hilton Als

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Hilton Als is an American writer and theater critic who writes for The New Yorker magazine. Previously, he had been a staff writer for The Village Voice and editor-at-large at Vibe magazine.

His 1996 book The Women focuses on his mother, who raised him in Brooklyn, Dorothy Dean, and Owen Dodson, who was a mentor and lover of Als. In the book, Als explores his identification of the confluence of his ...more