Cheryl Strayed (ed) - The Best American Travel Writing 2018

Copyright 2018 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Introduction copyright 2018 by Cheryl Strayed

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ISSN 15301516 (print)

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ISBN 978-1-328-49769-7 (print)

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v2.0918

Goodbye My Brother by Elliot Ackerman. First published in Esquire, April 2017. Copyright 2017 by Elliot Ackerman. Reprinted by permission of Elliot Ackerman.

Hope and Home by Rabih Alameddine. First published in Freemans: Home Issue 2017. Copyright 2017 by Rabih Alameddine. Reprinted by permission of Rabih Alameddine and Aragi Inc.

Peak America by Sam Anderson. First published in the New York Times Magazine, March 26, 2017. Copyright 2017 by the New York Times. Reprinted by permission of the New York Times.

Why Should a Melon Cost as Much as a Car? by Bianca Bosker. First published in Roads & Kingdoms, March 27, 2017. Copyright 2017 by Bianca Bosker. Reprinted by permission of Bianca Bosker.

The Ghost of Capablanca by Brin-Jonathan Butler. First published in Southwest, June 2017. Copyright 2017 by Brin-Jonathan Butler. Reprinted by permission of Brin-Jonathan Butler.

My Mother and I Went Halfway Around the World to Find Each Other by Jennifer Hope Choi. First published in BuzzFeed, February 3, 2017. Copyright 2017 by BuzzFeed, Inc. Reprinted by permission of BuzzFeed, Inc.

Signs and Wonders by J. D. Daniels. First published in Esquire, May 2017. Copyright 2017 by J. D. Daniels. Reprinted by permission of J. D. Daniels.

Traveling While Black by Camille Dungy. First published in Catapult, June 30, 2017. Adapted from Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys Into Race, Motherhood, and History by Camille T. Dungy. Copyright 2017 by Camille T. Dungy. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

The Foxes of Prince Edward Island by Matthew Ferrence. First published in the Gettysburg Review, Spring 2017. Copyright 2017 by Matthew Ferrence. Reprinted by permission of Matthew Ferrence.

What Ever Happened to the Russian Revolution? by Ian Frazier. First published in Smithsonian, October 2017. Copyright 2017 by Ian Frazier. Reprinted by permission of Wylie Agency, LLC.

Going It Alone by Rahawa Haile. First published in Outside, May 2017. Copyright 2017 by Rahawa Haile. Reprinted by permission of Outside Magazine.

The Digital Republic by Nathan Heller. First published in The New Yorker, December 18 & 25, 2017. Copyright 2017 by Nathan Heller. Reprinted by permission of Nathan Heller.

Some Kind of Calling by Pam Houston. First published in Outside, October 2017. Copyright 2017 by Pam Houston. Reprinted by permission of Darhansoff & Verrill Literary Agents.

Let the Devil Sing by Allegra Hyde. First published in Threepenny Review, Spring 2017. Copyright 2017 by Allegra Hyde. Reprinted by permission of Allegra Hyde.

Out of Sight by Ryan Knighton. First published in AFAR, July/August 2017. Copyright 2018 by Ryan Knighton. Reprinted by permission of AFAR.

Over the River by Richard Manning. First published in Harpers Magazine, January 2017. Copyright 2017 by Richard Manning. Reprinted by permission of Richard Manning.

Outside the Manson Pinkberry by Rachel Monroe. First published in the Believer, October/November 2017. Copyright 2017 by Rachel Monroe. Reprinted by permission of Rachel Monroe.

Righteous Gentile by Eileen Pollack. First published in Harvard Review #51 (Fall/Winter 2017). Copyright 2017 by Eileen Pollack. Reprinted by permission of Eileen Pollack.

Looking for Right or Wrong in the Philippines by Albert Samaha. First published in BuzzFeed, May 2017. Copyright 2017 by BuzzFeed, Inc. Reprinted by permission of BuzzFeed, Inc.

Thinking Outside the Bots by Gary Shteyngart. First published in Smithsonian, June 2017. Copyright 2017 by Gary Shteyngart. Reprinted by permission of Denise Shannon Literary Agency, Inc.

In the Home of the Bear by Christopher Solomon. First published in High Country News, December 25, 2017. Copyright 2017 by High Country News. Reprinted by permission of Christopher Solomon.

Notes from a Last Man by Barrett Swanson. First published in New England Review, vol. 38, no. 2, 2017. Copyright 2017 by Barrett Swanson. Reprinted by permission of Barrett Swanson.

Counter Revolution by Anya von Bremzen. First published in AFAR, May/June 2017. Copyright 2017 by Anya von Bremzen. Reprinted by permission of Anya von Bremzen.

Vacances by John von Sothen. First published in Esquire, August 2017. Copyright 2017 by John von Sothen. Reprinted by permission of John von Sothen.

In my travels , I am always fascinated by the palaces, estates, chteaus, manors, and towers left behind by the dysfunctional rulers of past epochsparticularly the ones erected by the crazier, more ruthless dukes, lords, doges, and strongmen. One of the most memorable and striking examples Ive ever visited is in Ferrara, Italy.

In 1385, Marquis Niccol II dEsteFerraras ruler, known as Niccol the Lame because of his crippling goutraised taxes on the citizens of his city-state to pay off his debts from lavish overspending on festooned luxuries and elaborate feasts. Higher taxes did not go over so well with the Ferrarese people, who had already suffered flooding and famine and all the other indignities of life as fourteenth-century peasants. And so an angry, armed mob marched on the House of Este. Unable to calm the revolt, Niccol the Lame eventually presented his finance minister, a guy named Tommaso da Tortona, and offered him to the mobwho promptly tore poor Tommaso to shreds, limb from limb, and roasted his body parts over a bonfire of burning books looted from the palace. Some of the crowd, it is reported, dined on the taxmans flesh.

After wiggling out of that close call, and after beheading the leaders of the revolt, Niccol the Lame concluded that hed better build a bigger, better castle. So he borrowed 25,000 ducats from his neighbor, the Duke of Mantua, and built Castello Estense, perhaps Italys finest Renaissance castle, with four massive towers, a deep moat, drawbridges, and an imposing redbrick facade. Through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Castello Estense became the focal point of Ferraras urban sophistication, and in its heyday the city-state was larger than even Rome. The House of Este attracted some of the Renaissances greatest artists and intellectuals, including Petrarch and Titian. In the castles vast kitchens, the famed cook Cristoforo da Messisbugothe celebrity chef of his dayconcocted grand banquets and wrote a cookbook that would help establish Italys world-famous cuisine.