How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

Alexander Chee

It suddenly seemed like everyone I know was reading and loving this book. Despite the suggestion of the title, the essays aren’t at all instructional in terms of writing, though they show by example how a collection of essays can build on each other and create a nuanced vision of a writer’s life. These are all very personal essays;...more

The End of Eve

Ariel Gore

I put this book on my to-read list shortly after it came out, and every so often I would notice it on my list, read the synopsis about Ariel Gore caring for her dying mother, and then I’d wonder if it was really something I wanted to read. Eventually five years later, I was looking for an ebook that I could download on my phone in a...more

Essayism

Brian Dillon

Imagine a type of writing so hard to define its very name should be something like: an effort, an attempt, a trial. Surmise or hazard, followed likely by failure. Imagine what it might rescue from disaster and achieve at the levels of form, style, texture and therefore (though some might cavil at “therefore”) at the

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Forty-One False Starts

Janet Malcolm

As a collection, Forty-One False Starts falls to the side of indiscriminate, especially the several shorter essays at the end that felt like they were included more because they fit the theme of artists and writers than because they had something truly remarkable to say. Maybe they were victims of placement, but they probably stand...more