The Best American Essays 2017

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The Best American Essays 2017 Page 38

by Leslie Jamison


  ADAM EWING

  In/Visibility, Transition, no. 119

  ALTHEA FANN

  What Flowers Mean, Crazyhorse, Fall

  BETH ANN FENNELLY

  Y’all’s Problem, The Chattahoochee Review, Spring

  GARY FINCKE

  Hearts, Ascent, May 12

  COLIN FLEMING

  A Midshipman Lights Out, Salmagundi, Spring/Summer

  MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK

  On Naming Bones, or, How to Ship a Mosquito, 1966: A Journal of Creative Nonfiction, Winter

  JONATHAN FRANZEN

  The End of the End of the World, The New Yorker, May 23

  ERICA FUNKHOUSER

  One Salt Marsh, One Hawk, One Swimmer, Harvard Review, no. 49

  NEAL GABLER

  My Secret Shame, The Atlantic, May

  MEGAN GALBRAITH

  Sin Will Find You Out, Catapult, March 1

  J. MALCOLM GARCIA

  If You Raise a Mexican Flag in America, Latterly, October

  EMILY GEMINDER

  Choreograph, Agni, no. 83

  DIANA HUME GEORGE

  In the House of Habakkuk, Chautauqua, no. 13

  DAVID GESSNER

  The Taming of the Wild, The American Scholar, Summer

  DENISE GIARDINA

  Candy, Appalachian Heritage, Fall

  RENEE GLADMAN

  Five Things, The Paris Review, Summer

  ERIK GLEIBERMANN

  Soothing the Serpent’s Tooth, The Florida Review, Summer

  ELIZABETH GOLD

  So It Begins, The Gettysburg Review, Spring

  ANNE GOLDMAN

  The Kingdom of the Medusae, Southwest Review, vol. 101, no. 2

  RIGOBERTO GONZALEZ

  Dias de los Muertos: A Oaxaco Journal, Apogee, no. 8

  ADAM GOPNIK

  Feel Me, The New Yorker, May 16

  EMILY FOX GORDON

  Mr. Sears, Ploughshares, Summer

  MICHAEL GRAFF

  Man Alone, Success, September

  PETER GRANDBOIS

  Honor, North Dakota Quarterly, Winter

  SARAH GRIGG

  Medicine Wings, Boulevard, Spring

  STEPHEN D. GUTIERREZ

  The Case for Steve Gutierrez, Waccamaw, Fall

  DEBRA GWARTNEY

  Into Every Life Some Rain Must Fall, Creative Nonfiction, Fall

  SHAHNAZ HABIB

  A Letter to My Daughter About Palindromes, Agni, no. 84

  KATHLEEN HALE

  Through the Looking Glass: A Week at Miss America, Mary Review, Fall

  CLAIRE HALLIDAY

  The Possible Universe, The Sun, September

  CAMERON DEZEN HAMMON

  Infirmary Music, The Literary Review, Summer

  LARRY HANDY

  What to Do When Grandma Has Dementia, Rivet, no. 9

  SILAS HANSEN

  What Real Men Do, The Normal School, Fall

  RACHEL MICHELLE HANSON

  Ways of Leaving, American Literary Review, Spring

  DANIEL HARRIS

  The Kardashians, Southwest Review, vol. 101, no. 4

  STEPHANIE HARRISON

  What We Have Left, Colorado Review, Summer

  NATHAN HELLER

  The Big Uneasy, The New Yorker, May 30

  SARA HENDERY

  Dangerous Language, Creative Nonfiction, Summer

  ARIEL HENLEY

  White Noise, The Rumpus, October 3

  MICHAEL J. HESS

  On the Morning After the Crash, Sport Literate, vol. 10, no. 1

  ERIK P. HOEL

  Fiction in the Age of Screens, The New Atlantis, Spring/Summer

  BROOKE HOLMES

  Tragedy in the Crosshairs of the Present, Daedalus, Spring

  ANN HOOD

  Imagine, The Normal School, Spring

  LAUREN HOUGH

  ‘The Shepherds, Granta, no. 137

  CARLYNN HOUGHTON

  Letter to a Stranger: US Route 17, New York, Off Assignment, May 12

  PAT C. HOY II

  Habitations, The Sewanee Review, Summer

  EWA HRYNIEWICZ-YARBROUGH

  Little Bowls of Colors, The American Scholar, Autumn

  SONYA HUBER

  If Woman Is Five, River Teeth, Spring

  BARBARA HURD

  Glimpses, Orion, November/December

  SIRI HUSTVEDT

  Sontag on Smut: Fifty Years Later, Salmagundi, Spring/Summer

  AMY IRVINE

  Conflagrations, Pacific Standard, July/August

  DIONNE IRVING

  Treading Water, The Missouri Review, vol. 39, no. 2

  LUCY IVES

  Sodom, LLC, Lapham’s Quarterly, Fall

  RONALD JACKSON

  Camille: A Memory, The Chattahoochee Review, Spring

  HEATHER JACOBS

  Seven Portraits/Siete Retratos, Fifth Wednesday, Fall

  LESLIE JAMISON

  The Persephone Complex, Water-Stone Review, no. 19

  BROOKE JARVIS

  When I Die, Harper’s Magazine, January

  ANNA JOURNEY

  Little Face, Agni, no. 84

  GARRET KEIZER

  Solidarity and Survival, Lapham’s Quarterly, Spring

  RALPH KEYES

  Inscriber’s Block, The American Scholar, Spring

  ALISON KINNEY

  History in Wax, Lapham’s Quarterly, April 11

  WALTER KIRN

  Crossing the Valley, Harper’s Magazine, April

  CATHRYN KLUSMEIER

  Crucifixions, Crazyhorse, Fall

  KIM DANA KUPPERMAN

  Memorial Daze (It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry), Aster(ix), Fall

  JOHN LAHR

  Hooker Heaven, Esquire, June/July

  LAURIE CLEMENTS LAMBETH

  Going Downhill from Here, Ecotone, Spring

  BARTH LANDOR

  Forty Passages for Shakespeare, The Georgia Review, Summer

  LANCE LARSEN

  Heavenly Hits, The Gettysburg Review, Winter

  PETER LASALLE

  Driving in São Paulo at Night with a Good Friend Who Has Died, The Southern Review, Spring

  LIZ LATTY

  What We Lost: Undoing the Fairy Tale Myth of Adoption, The Rumpus, November 17

  DAVID LAZAR

  Five Autobiographical Fragments, or She May Have Been a Witch, River Teeth, Fall

  ANNA LEAHY

  Sweet Dreams Are Made of This, Dogwood, no. 15

  REBECCA LEE

  The Rules of Engagement, Able Muse, Summer

  ALEX LEMON

  How Long Before You Go Dry, River Teeth, Fall

  DINAH LENNEY

  A Longer Reach, Los Angeles Review of Books, November 28

  JOAN LI

  Something That Lasts, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fall

  MARGIT LIESCHE

  The Ocean Between Us, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fall

  ANYA LIFTIG

  Irretrievable Breakdown, bioStories, September

  BRANDON LINGLE

  Turbulence, The American Scholar, Autumn

  MEL LIVATINO

  Going Home Again, Under the Sun, no. 4

  SONJA LIVINGSTON

  Spools of White Thread, 1966: A Journal of Creative Nonfiction, Winter

  PHILLIP LOPATE

  Red Relations, Mount Hope, Fall

  DAVID STUART MACLEAN

  Golden Friendship Club, Bennington Review, Spring/Summer

  PATRICK MADDEN

  Missing, Portland, Spring

  EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL

  The Year of Numbered Rooms, Humanities, Spring

  LUCAS MANN

  Trying to Get Right, Guernica, April 15

  ALEX MAR

  Blood Ties, Oxford American, Spring

  MARTINO MARAZZI

  Amelia, The Carolina Quarterly, Summer

  STEPHEN MARCHE

  The Age of Ephemerality, Brick, no. 96

  CLANCY MARTIN


  Seven Times Inside, Vice, November

  DAVID MASELLO

  Building Friendships, American Arts Quarterly, July

  REBECCA MCCLANAHAN

  Wren Boy, River Teeth, Spring

  ELIZABETH MCCRACKEN

  The Container & the Thing Contained, Harvard Review, no. 49

  LATANYA MCQUEEN

  After Water Comes the Fires, Bennington Review, Fall/Winter

  JOHN MCWHORTER

  Thick of Tongue, Guernica, March 15

  DAVID MEANS

  The Old Man, Harper’s Magazine, June

  ANDREW MENARD

  Blind Spot, The Georgia Review, Spring

  S. J. MILLER

  A Merry Little Christmas, The Sun, May

  CAILLE MILLNER

  Four Murders, Michigan Quarterly Review, Winter

  THOMAS MIRA Y LOPEZ

  Capricci, Alaska Quarterly Review, Spring/Summer

  DAVE MONDY

  And We’ll See You Tomorrow Night, The Cincinnati Review, Winter

  DEBRA MONROE

  Trouble in Mind, The Rumpus, September 11

  ANDER MONSON

  Remainder, Territory, August 5

  DAVID MONTGOMERY

  The Living and the Dead, The Washington Post Magazine, December 18

  DAN MUSGRAVE

  Worry, The Missouri Review, vol. 39, no. 2

  ALLISON GRACE MYERS

  Perfume Poured Out, Image, no. 89

  ANDI MYLES

  Impressions from a Vacuum, Alligator Juniper, no. XX

  MICHAEL NAGEL

  Beached Whales, Apt, July

  JOHN R. NELSON

  Funny Bird Sex, The Antioch Review, Winter

  KERRY NEVILLE

  After Divorce: Flight Path, Huffington Post, September 20

  JENNIFER NIESSLEIN

  Before We Were Good White, Full Grown People, December 15

  JAMES NOLAN

  Stairway to Paradise, Boulevard, Spring

  W. SCOTT OLSEN

  Before the Breaking Wave: The Duluth North Pier Lighthouse, North Dakota Quarterly, Spring/Summer

  CARYL PAGEL

  Alphabet, Entropy, September 8

  LARRY PALMER

  Urshel: The Beautiful Lost Sheep, Blackbird, Spring

  FRANCES PARK

  “You Two Are So Beautiful Together,” The Massachusetts Review, Summer

  BRICE PARTICELLI

  Take Me to the (Bronx?) River, The Big Roundtable, June

  ELENA PASSARELLO

  Twinkle, Twinkle, Vogel Staar, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer

  COREY PEIN

  Everybody Freeze! The Baffler, no. 30

  EMILIA PHILLIPS

  Excisions, Story Quarterly, no. 49

  JOHN PICARD

  The Accordion Polka, Moon City Review

  SAM PICKERING

  Habituated Eye, The Sewanee Review, Summer

  MELISSA HOLBROOK PIERSON

  Gimme Shelter, Lumina, no. XV

  SALLY POTTER

  Naked Cinema, A Public Space, no. 24

  SHELLEY PUHAK

  Detained: A Genealogy of Whores and Wolves, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, no. 54

  LIA PURPURA

  All the Fierce Tethers, The New England Review, vol. 37, no. 3

  JILL SISSON QUINN

  Begetting, Kenyon Review, September/October

  ADRIANA E. RAMÍREZ

  On Black Bodies, Metaphor, and Mourning, Literary Hub, August 30

  MICHAEL RAMOS

  A Long but Incomplete List of Some of the Things You Can’t (Don’t) Talk About, Fourth Genre, Fall

  ADRIENNE RAPHEL

  A Is for A, The Iowa Review, vol. 46, no. 3

  WENDY RAWLINGS

  Portrait of a Family, Crooked & Straight, Colorado Review, Summer

  SUE REPKO

  The Gun Show, The Southeast Review, vol. 34, no. 2

  JIM RINGLEY

  On the Smell of Certain Houses, The Threepenny Review, Fall

  WALTER M. ROBINSON

  This Will Sting and Burn, The Sun, January

  JAMES SILAS ROGERS

  Digging for Nothing, Ruminate, Spring

  KELSEY RONAN

  Blood and Water, Michigan Quarterly Review, Spring

  DANIEL ASA ROSE

  Separated at Birth, Harper’s Magazine, December

  KENNETH R. ROSEN

  Notes from My Suicide, The Big Roundtable, March 10

  NATANIA ROSENFELD

  The Autonomous Land of Prapruninma, Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall

  MARY ROSS-DOLEN

  Diphtheria, North Dakota Quarterly, Winter

  MAURICE CARLOS RUFFIN

  Fine Dining, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall

  SHARMAN APT RUSSELL

  People Who Live Inside Us, The Threepenny Review, Winter

  SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS

  They’re Neighbors of Mine, Notre Dame Magazine, Winter

  MARIN SARDY

  Break My Body, Guernica, August 8

  RICHARD SCHMITT

  Not Knowing: The Rock & Roll of Drinking, Alaska Quarterly Review, Spring/Summer

  BRANDON R. SCHRAND

  Through the Glass Clearly, The Missouri Review, vol. 39, no. 4

  MIMI SCHWARTZ

  On Stage and Off, Prairie Schooner, Fall

  SOPHFRONIA SCOTT

  Why I Didn’t Go to the Firehouse, The Timberline Review, Summer/Fall

  JO SCOTT-COE

  Listening to Kathy, Catapult, March 30

  WILLIAM HENRY SEARLE

  The Hollow of Shell Bay, Bellevue Literary Review, Spring

  DAVID SEDARIS

  The Perfect Fit, The New Yorker, March 28

  FREDERIC WILL

  Eighteen Polarities from Within the Self, The Yale Review, January

  PETER SELGIN

  Noise, Bellevue Literary Review, Fall

  AURVI SHARMA

  Apricots, Gulf Coast, vol. 28, no. 1

  MICHAEL SHEEHAN

  On the Undiscovered Origins of Everything in Waxahachie, Texas, Agni, no. 84

  FLOYD SKLOOT

  He Had a Falcon, Boulevard, vol. 32, no. 1

  LAUREN SLATER

  It’s Over?, Elle, May

  ANDREW SLOUGH

  Avoiding Hemingway in Ketchum, Idaho, Catamaran, Winter

  PATRICIA SMITH

  My Bricks Be Foul, Prairie Schooner, Winter

  CARRIE SNYDER

  Why Give Yourself Away?, Brick, no. 96

  JIM SOLLISCH

  The Foreskin and the Hindsight, The Washington Post Magazine, January 10

  DOROTHY SPEARS

  Labor Day Weekend, Epiphany, Fall/Winter

  KATHERINE E. STANDEFER

  Wilderness, CutBank, no. 84

  ELEANOR STANFORD

  Grammar for an Unwritten Language (Cape Verde, West Africa), Kenyon Review, March/April

  DAVID STEVENSON

  A Late and Uninvited Correspondent Responds to Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, Alpinist, Winter

  LAURIE STONE

  Montreal, Ascent, August 9

  ROBERT STOTHART

  Magpies, The New England Review, vol. 37, no. 4

  EMILY STRASSER

  Exposure, Colorado Review, Summer

  ABE STREEP

  The Devil Is Loose, The California Sunday Magazine, August 7

  SHEILA GRACE STUEWE

  Star Struck (1982), Hunger Mountain, no. 20

  ANDREW SULLIVAN

  I Used to Be a Human Being, New York, September 19/October 2

  JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN

  Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues, Oxford American, Winter

  BARRETT SWANSON

  Calling Audibles, Mississippi Review, vol. 43, no. 3

  JESSIE SZALAY

  Sloughing Off, Gulf Coast, vol. 28, no. 2

  JILL TALBOT

  An Eye on the Door, The Normal School, Spring

  ASHLEY P. TAYLOR

  Af
ter the Essay, Entropy, October 26

  KAITLYN TEER

  Ossification, Fourth Genre, Spring

  KERRY TEMPLE

  What’s Best for Them, Notre Dame Magazine, Autumn

  SALLIE TISDALE

  Gaijin, Conjunctions, no. 66

  TOMMY TOMLINSON

  Our Old Dog, Charlotte, February

  SAMANTHA TUCKER

  Fountain Girls, Ecotone, Fall/Winter

  SARAH VALLANCE

  Heart Attack, Post Road, no. 31

  JESSE MACEO VEGA-FREY

  Pigs, Boston Review, January/February

  SARAH VIREN

  Advise Me, The Iowa Review, vol. 46, no. 1

  SCOTT VOGEL

  Gross Anatomy, Houstonia, December

  ALIA VOLZ

  Chasing Arrows, The New England Review, vol. 37, no. 1

  JULIE MARIE WADE

  Hourglass (III), Southern Humanities Review, vol. 50, nos. 1 & 2

  JERALD WALKER

  Thieves, River Teeth, Spring

  NICOLE WALKER

  Revolution, Barrelhouse, no. 15

  YUNGHSIN WANG

  Body, Esprit, Fall

  KEEMA WATERFIELD

  You Will Find Me in the Starred Sky, Brevity, May

  SARAH M. WELLS

  The Body Is Not a Coffin, Under the Gum Tree, April

  ROSE WHITMORE

  Witness, Colorado Review, Fall/Winter

  JOEL WHITNEY

  Fifty Years of Disquietude, The Baffler, no. 33

  ESTHER K. WILLISON

  Askew, Bellevue Literary Review, Spring

  GARRY WILLS

  My Koran Problem, The New York Review of Books, March 24

  HEATHER GEMMEN WILSON

  Unpinned, River Teeth, Spring

  STEVEN WINEMAN

  Erving and Alice and Sky and Elisabeth, The Cincinnati Review, Winter

  DAVID WOJAHN

  On Hearing That My Poems Were Being Studied in a Distant Place, Blackbird, Spring

  BRENNA WOMER

  Wusthof Silverpoint II 10-Piece Set, Grist, no. 9

  AMY YEE

  Delhi’s Current Flows On, Electric Literature, October 7

  YIN Q

  The Home of Desperate Magic, Apogee, no. 8

  ALISSA YORK

  In Memoriam Pompeius Maximus, Brick, no. 96

  JESS ZIMMERMAN

  A Life in Google Maps, Catapult, September 12

  Notable Special Issues of 2016

  The Antioch Review, “Sex,” ed. Robert S. Fogarty, Winter

  The Baffler, “The Virtue Cartel,” ed. Chris Lehmann, no. 33

  Bellevue Literary Review, “Reconstructions: The Art of Memory,” ed. Danielle Ofri, Fall

  The Bennington Review, “Misbegotten Youth,” ed. Michael Dumanis, Fall/Winter

  Chautauqua, “Americana,” eds. Jill Gerard and Philip Gerard, no. 13

  Conjunctions, “Affinity: The Friendship Issue,” ed. Bradford Morrow, no. 66

  Creative Nonfiction, “Marriage,” ed. Lee Gutkind, Spring

  Daedalus, “What’s New About the Old,” guest ed. Matthew S. Santirocco, Spring

  Ecotone, “The Country & City Issue,” ed. David Gessner, Fall/Winter

 

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