From Publishers Weekly
This is the sort of collection series editor Robert Atwan undoubtedly had in mind when he started this series 10 years ago: accessible and informative essays that cover everything from history to current events, from nature to pop culture. James Fenton writes that Michelangelo was so paranoid about competition that he "surrounded himself deliberately with no-hopers"; Adam Gopnik reveals that Queen Victoria's son Leopold wanted to marry the girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland; Julie Baumgold notes that Elvis Presley's colon was "two feet too long, and twisted"; and, according to Gordon Grice, a black widow's web is designed to let its creator discern, at a distance, the difference "between a raindrop or leaf and viable prey." Unlike past editions, some themes echo in Ward's choices: Joan Acocella's piece on Willa Cather and Gerald Early's on Afrocentrism both warn of the danger of manipulating facts to suit an agenda, while William Cronon and Jonathan Raban muse on the yuppification of nature. As Cronon puts it, "celebrating wilderness has been an activity mainly for well-to-do city folks" who never "had to work the land" for a living. Meanwhile Raban leaves the comfortable city to freeze his fingers on a winter fly-fishing expedition. The beauty of this collection is that while each essay was created independently, together they create a picture of what's relevant in North America as the 20th century comes to a close. As a collection, they more than live up to the superlative in the title. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Thanks to the wide-ranging interests of guest editor Ward, a columnist for American Heritage and the author of histories (e.g., The West, LJ 8/96), there are some memorable moments in this tenth edition of Robert Atwan's best essays series. James Alan McPherson's "Crabcakes," a stunning transcendental meditation on returning to the author's former home in Baltimore on the death of his tenant, is one essay (originally published in Doubletake) that most readers will not have seen before. Gordon Grice's "Black Widow" (High Plains Literary Review) is a chilling excursus on the author's fascination with the spider, while Julie Baumgold's "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Elvis" (Esquire) tenderly puts to rest America's adulation of the rocker. Gerald Early's "Understanding Afrocentrism" (Civilization) and Darryl Pinckney's "Slouching Toward Washington" (New York Review of Books) take on some hard-hitting issues in the African American community. Numerous essays from the New Yorker are represented, notably Nicholson Baker's much-discussed "Books as Furniture." Essential for literature collections.?Amy Boaz, "Library Journal"Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
The Best American Essays 1998 features a captivating mix of people and prose, as guest editor Cynthia Ozick shapes a volume around the intricacies of human memory. The reflections and recollections of Saul Bellow, John Updike, Jamaica Kincaid, John McPhee, and Andre Dubus join company with many voices new to the series, as an astonishing variety of writers share their deepest thought on ecstasy and injury, ambition and failure, privacy and notoriety.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Well Said

In her introduction to this year's edition of this popular anthology series, Cynthia Ozick stakes out her definition of the essay versus the article. The article may be "timely and topical" but it is "likely to be stale within a month." By contrast, the essay is timeless; it abandons "rage and revenge" and instead bears a "certain quietude...a kind of detachment...the essay is by and large a serene and melancholic form."

It's possible to read this definition as a deliberate rebuke to the current craze for memoir, the prevailing trend in nonfiction toward the explicit and confessional. First-person accounts of incest, infidelity, self-mutilation, Tourette's syndrome, heroin habits, and spanking fetishes seem to be everywhere these days, but they're absent in this volume. Instead, Ozick has defiantly chosen to present recent writing that lacks anger or sordid detail. The 25 essays she's gathered are uniformly gentle and reflective, well-crafted and calm.

The essayists in this volume eschew rage for what contributor André Aciman refers to as "the beauty of remembering." Childhood is not a battlefield but a source of constant discovery and joy. Brian Doyle lovingly recounts his experiences as a "great altar boy"; Oliver Sacks writes of the "delicious transformation" found in summer holiday swims; John Updike recalls his passionate adolescent fixation with comic-book art; Helen Barolini praises the lessons learned from a benevolent, inspirational Italian tutor. Several authors offer wry observations on culture. Saul Bellow critiques "modern imagemaking"— describing photographers as "demonic, sadistic camera technicians." Sven Birkerts ponders the fate of reading in an age of channel surfing — the "climate of distractedness that envelops us." Jeremy Bernstein describes a run-in with a rather defeated Stephen Spender, while James Wood lambastes a "tedious" Broadway production of "A Doll's House." Two essayists take on the unfashionable subject matter of aging. In "Will You Still Feed Me?" Joseph Epstein proudly details his take on reaching the "stately age of sixty," while William Maxwell reflects on his waning years in "Nearing Ninety."

A standout essay in this collection is "A Visit to Camelot." In this posthumous piece, critic Diane Trilling recounts a dinner party at the White House in 1962. Surrounded by literary luminaries such as James Baldwin, Katherine Anne Porter, and Robert Frost, Trilling and her husband drink champagne and engage in flirtatious banter with John and Jackie Kennedy. The piece reads like a combination of Noël Coward and Edith Wharton, full of cutting observations and evocative descriptions of manners and costumes. Trilling offers a fascinating portrait of the famed Camelot: She hints at the strain in the marriage between the Kennedys, the boredom and reckless energy that existed within their world of protocol. Yet she never resorts to gossip or cruel asides as she speaks of the President and his wife, and her style is so discreet and charming, a welcome antidote to all the current tawdry and vitriolic prose about the White House today. In much the same way, these collected essays offer a genteel and calm respite from the brash and vulgar.
— Margot Towne, barnesandnoble.com

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Best American Essays 1998 features a captivating mix of people and prose, as guest editor Cynthia Ozick shapes a volume around the intricacies of human memory. The reflections and recollections of Saul Bellow, John Updike, Jamaica Kincaid, John McPhee, and Andre Dubus join company with many voices new to the series, as an astonishing variety of writers share their deepest thought on ecstasy and injury, ambition and failure, privacy and notoriety.

SYNOPSIS

The Best American Essays 1998 is a departure from the first-person writing that has dominated nonfiction for the past couple of years. Avoiding sordid confessional memoirs, editor Cynthia Ozick has chosen 25 calm, finely written essays.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

This year, Ozick (The Puttermesser Papers, LJ 5/15/97) does not contribute an essay to this distinguished anthology but serves as editor. In her introduction, which she calls, "Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body," she writes of the "meditative temperateness" of the essay form, calling it "the movement of the free mind at play." Series editor Atwan warns, "You will find few tidy conclusions in this collection." The 25 selected essays do indeed show authors turning things over in their minds or, as Atwan says, using writing as thought process: Anwar Accawi thinks back to how the arrival of a telephone changed his village, James Wood analyzes why Chekhov's theatrical art is superior, and several contributors (including Sven Birkerts in "States of Reading") write about reading. Other essayists include Edward Hoagland, Jamaica Kincaid, John McPhee, and Oliver Sacks. The introduction explains the selection process, and brief biographies of the essayists and a list of the "Notable Essays" appear at the end. Recommended for public and academic libraries.--Nancy P. Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, NC

Chicago Tribune

An eclectic assortment. . .some of the best storytellers of our day.

Kirkus Reviews

August writers and intimations of mortality mark this year's fine collection in this annual series. In her introduction, novelist and master essayist Ozick (Fame and Folly, The Puttermesser Papers) writes with characteristic firmness of the "living voice" of the essay. Maybe it's due to the coming of the end of the century, to the ages of these writers, or to Ms. Ozick's own personal outlook, but the voices bending our ears this year are often settled yet still in awe of humanity. Ian Frazier finds Queens, New York, a kaleidoscope of hopes; Brian Doyle is moved by the force of the Catholic Church; Sven Birkerts explores the "transformative" power of the act of reading, and more. Nearly without exception, the writing in the essays is so good that if you love the genre, you almost have to sit before the words and be happy. The rub? As in some previous years, it's the presence of many more Sure-to-Please Masters than Newer Writers Deserving Attention, as well as the high representation of Well-known magazines in the volume. Though who can truly quibble with a lineup that includes Coetzee, Kincaid, and McPhee, and that culls from the New Yorker and other estimable venues? It's just that while essay fans read such collections to revisit old friends, most of us also hope to find stunning work from little-known writers and magazines. For instance, itþs pleasing to be introduced to Anwar F. Accawi, who details with finality the wreck of his Lebanese village by modernity in "The Telephone," and to get a smattering from less-mined journals like Alaska Quarterly Review. Someday, please, more of the new and less of the old. For an angrier, more confessional, or more reportorialmix, we've been put on hold.