Robert Atwan - The Best American Essays 2021

1986 ELIZABETH HARDWICK

1987 GAY TALESE

1988 ANNIE DILLARD

1989 GEOFFREY WOLFF

1990 JUSTIN KAPLAN

1991 JOYCE CAROL OATES

1992 SUSAN SONTAG

1993 JOSEPH EPSTEIN

1994 TRACY KIDDER

1995 JAMAICA KINCAID

1996 GEOFFREY C. WARD

1997 IAN FRAZIER

1998 CYNTHIA OZICK

1999 EDWARD HOAGLAND

2000 ALAN LIGHTMAN

2001 KATHLEEN NORRIS

2002 STEPHEN JAY GOULD

2003 ANNE FADIMAN

2004 LOUIS MENAND

2005 SUSAN ORLEAN

2006 LAUREN SLATER

2007 DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

2008 ADAM GOPNIK

2009 MARY OLIVER

2010 CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

2011 EDWIDGE DANTICAT

2012 DAVID BROOKS

2013 CHERYL STRAYED

2014 JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN

2015 ARIEL LEVY

2016 JONATHAN FRANZEN

2017 LESLIE JAMISON

2018 HILTON ALS

2019 REBECCA SOLNIT

2020 ANDR ACIMAN

2021 KATHRYN SCHULZ

Copyright 2021 by HarperCollins Publishers LLC

Introduction copyright 2021 by Kathryn Schulz

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ISSN 0888-3742 (print) | ISSN 2573-3885 (e-book) | ISBN 978-0-358-38175-4 (print) | ISBN 978-0-358-38122-8 (e-book)

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Author photograph Dmitri Kasterine

v1.0921

The Trayvon Generation by Elizabeth Alexander. First published in The New Yorker, June 22, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Elizabeth Alexander. Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Alexander.

Homecoming by Hilton Als. First published in The New Yorker, June 29, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Hilton Als. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

The Broken Country by Molly McCully Brown. First published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2020. Copyright 2020 by Molly McCully Brown. Reprinted by permission of Molly McCully Brown.

Acceptance Parenting by Agnes Callard. First published in The Point, October 2, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Agnes Callard. Reprinted by permission of Agnes Callard.

The Kitchen Is Closed by Gabrielle Hamilton. First published in The New York Times Magazine, April 23, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Gabrielle Hamilton. Reprinted by permission of the author and Inkwell Management.

Bent Arrows: On Anticipation of My Approaching Disappearance by Tony Hoagland. First published in Ploughshares, 45/4. Copyright 2020 by Kathleen Lee. Reprinted by permission of Kathleen Lee.

Vicious Cycles by Greg Jackson. First published in Harpers Magazine, January 2020. Copyright 2020 by Greg Jackson. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc. on behalf of the author.

Clarity by Ruchir Joshi. First published in Granta, #151, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Ruchir Joshi. Reprinted by permission of Granta.

Oh Latitudo by Amy Leach. First published in Granta, #153, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Amy Leach. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

Insane After Coronavirus? by Patricia Lockwood. First published in London Review of Books, July 2020. Copyright 2020 by Patricia Lockwood. Reprinted by permission of Patricia Lockwood.

Love in a Time of Terror by Barry Lopez. Published in Literary Hub, August 7, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Barry Holstun Lopez. Reprinted by permission of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. This essay originally appeared as the foreword to an anthology, Earthly Love: Stories of Intimacy and Devotion from Orion Magazine, published by Orion in 2020.

What I Learned When My Husband Got Sick with Coronavirus by Jessica Lustig. First published in The New York Times Magazine, March 24, 2020. Copyright 2020 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

What Money Cant Buy by Dawn Lundy Martin. First published in Ploughshares, 46/1, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Dawn Lundy Martin. Reprinted by permission of Dawn Lundy Martin.

Two Women by Claire Messud, first published in A Public Space, #29, 2020, and later included in Kants Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write published October 13, 2020, by W. W. Norton. Copyright 2020 by Claire Messud. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

My Mustache by Wesley Morris. First published in The New York Times Magazine, October 18, 2020. Copyright 2020 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.

Apparent by Beth Nguyen. First published in The Paris Review, Spring 2020. Copyright 2020 by Beth Nguyen. Reprinted by Beth Nguyen.

The Designated Mourner by Fintan OToole. First published in The New York Review of Books, January 16, 2020. Copyright 2020 by Fintan OToole. Reprinted by permission of Fintan OToole.

Going Postal by Max Read. First published in Bookforum, Sept/Oct/Nov 2020. Copyright 2020 by Max Read. Reprinted by permission of Max Read.

In Orbit by Dariel Suarez. First published in The Threepenny Review, Winter 2020. Copyright 2020 by Dariel Suarez. Reprinted by permission of Dariel Sua-rez.

Witness and Respair by Jesmyn Ward. First published in Vanity Fair, September 2020. Copyright 2020 by Jesmyn Ward. Reprinted by permission of Jesmyn Ward.

D EVOTED READERS OF this series will have noticed how often Montaigne and Emerson have appeared in these annual forewords. As they represent two of world literatures finest essayists, the literary reasons for their persistent presence should be clear. But less obvious may be my personal reasons for always circling back to them. So for this years foreword I will indulge in a bit of intellectual autobiography.

For those of us who encounter the world with a defective intellect, life can be an exasperating struggle. Whether the result of brain circuitry, formative early experiences, or an evolved sensibility, a chronic skepticism can amount to a troublesome affliction. One of my first intellectual heroes, Bertrand Russell, put it well: people hate sceptics far more than they hate the passionate advocates of opinions hostile to their own. Skepticism can lead to indifference, indecision, apathy, disengagementall attitudes despised by those passionate in their beliefs and opinions. It can also lead to a contrarianism that delights in taking a vacation from prevailing orthodoxies. In a fine 1997 essay, the writer and free speech advocate Wendy Kaminera former president of the National Coalition against Censorshipcalled this tendency A Civic Duty to Annoy.

My parentsboth high school dropoutsapparently didnt realize that my skeptical temperament would not suit the urban parochial schools they sent me to from first to twelfth grade. I doubt I would have fared better in our public schools, but I very early on grew skeptical of what I learned in religious instruction. This caused constant friction with the priests and nuns, oras we called themthe fathers and sisters. Yes, in those days they really did rap your knuckles with a yardstick, and it stung. I respected religionI even served as an altar boybut the beliefs just led to too many questions, and I wasnt often satisfied by the answers supplied in our