The Next American Essay

In The Next American Essay, John D'Agata takes a literary tour of lyric essays written by the masters of the craft. Beginning with 1975 and John McPhee's ingenious piece, "The Search for Marvin Gardens," D'Agata selects an example of creative nonfiction for each subsequent year. These essays are unrestrained, elusive, explosive, mysterious--a personal lingual playground. They encompass and illuminate culture, myth, history, romance, and sex. Each essay is a world of its own, a world so distinctive it resists definition.

Contributors include:

Sherman Alexie

David Antin

Jenny Boully

Anne Carson

Guy Davenport

Lydia Davis

Joan Didion

Annie Dillard

Thalia Field

Albert Goldbarth

Susan Griffin

Theresa Hak Kung Cha

Jamaica Kincaid

Wayne Koestenbaum

Barry Lopez

John McPhee

Carole Maso

Harry Mathews

Susan Mitchell

Fabio Morabito

Mary Ruefle

David Shields

Dennis Silk

Susan Sontag

Alexander Theroux

George W. S. Trow

David Foster Wallace

Eliot Weinberger

Joe Wenderoth

James Wright