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Anyone still asking, “What is creative nonfiction?” will find the answer in this collection of artfully crafted, true stories. These stories—ranging from immersion journalism to intensely personal essays—illustrate the genre’s power and potential. Edwidge Danticat recalls her Uncle Moïse’s love of a certain four-letter word and finds in his abandonment of the word near the end of his life the true meaning of exile. In “Literary Murder,” Julianna Baggott traces her roots as a novelist to her family’s “strange, desperate (sometimes conniving and glorious) past” and writes about her decision, in The Madam, to kill off a character based on her grandfather. And Sean Rowe explains why, if you must get arrested, Selma, Alabama, is the place to do it. This exciting and expansive array of works and voices is sure to impress and delight.
Purchase this book alone or as part of the Best Creative Nonfiction box set.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Agent of Change
Lee Gutkind
An Insider’s Guide to Jailhouse Cuisine: Dining In
Sean Rowe
from The Oxford American
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Literary Murder
Julianna Baggott
from The Cincinnati Review
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Rock Dust
Stan Badgett
from Minnetonka Review
Show, Don’t Tell
from The Education of Oronte Churm (insidehighered.com)
The Rope Swing, the Swastika, the Oldest Whale I Know
Scott Black
from Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing
Table of Figures
Brenda Miller
from Gulf Coast
Okahandja Lessons
Emily Rapp
from Bellevue Literary Review
No Other Joy
from steenablog.blogspot.com
First Year
Laura Bramon Good
from Image: Art, Faith, Mystery
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Letter from a Japanese Crematorium
Marie Mutsuki Mockett
from AGNI
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Uncle Moïse
Edwidge Danticat
from PMS poemmemoirstory
The Face of Seung-Hui Cho
Wesley Yang
from n+1
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The Poet’s Mother’s Death-Bed Conversion
from jeffreyethanlee.blogspot.com
The Storyteller
from planetmexicali.squarespace.com
Lavish Dwarf Entertainment
Alice Dreger
from The Hastings Center Report
Chicago Transit Priority
from wood-tang.com
Grasshopper
Margaret Conway
from Cimarron Review
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What Comes Out
Dawnelle Wilkie
(names have been changed)
from steal your imagination (web.mac.com/irishdoyle)
Community College
Tim Bascom
from Witness
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Cantata 147: The Final Chorale **Winner of the CNF/Norton MFA Program-Off!
Amy Andrews
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I Can’t Answer
from Spade’s a Spade or, The Burden of Being Right
An Open Letter…
from kathyrhodes.wordpress.com
A Perfunctory Affair
Chris Cobb
from Believer
Return to Hayneville
Gregory Orr
from The Virginia Quarterly Review
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Reviews
With the big subjects of life and death framing the smaller frustrations of everyday existence, this third volume in the Creative Nonfiction series showcases a type of journalism that in many ways is informed by cutting-edge media. Indeed, of the 25 essays reprinted, one-quarter first appeared on the Web. As diverse as the subjects are, so are the writers represented. Likewise, there is a range in length, from blogs under one page to 20-page narratives. Predictably, the essays also display varying levels of inspiration and sparkle. Among the standouts is five-time Pushcart winner Brenda Miller on a girl's changing relationship with her body as she grows into womanhood; Edwidge Danticat on an uncle's love of the ultimate expletive; an emotional “Letter from a Japanese Crematorium” by Marie Mutsuki Mockett; a family car deal gone awry by Margaret Conway; an exploration of the meaning of the mass murders at Virginia Tech through the sad eyes of gunman Seung-Hui Cho by Wesley Yang. The energetic Gutkind (Almost Human) edits his lean anthology with panache and gusto.
—Publishers Weekly, August 2009
VERDICT For the most part, the writing in this collection is powerful—the essays and blogs entertain, inform, and inspire. Followers of contemporary issues presented in compelling prose will devour.
—Kathryn R. Bartelt, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN, for Library Journal
I’ve enjoyed reading “The Best Creative Nonfiction” anthologies that
Norton has published for the past three summers. Excellently edited by Lee Gutkind, the founder of the journal Creative Nonfiction, and the man whom Harper’s has called “the leading figure behind the creative nonfiction movement,” the books collect the year’s best writing in this genre from newspapers, literary magazines large and small, and yes, blogs. This year’s collection contains seven entries from the Web—more than any previous edition—and one of them, Kathy Rhodes’s “Open Letter” to her husband in the wake of his sudden and catastrophic death—is, to my mind, one of the best in the book.
—Andrea Walker, The Book Bench (newyorker.com), July 27, 2009
352 pages
Edited by Lee Gutkind
W.W. Norton & Company; Paperback (c) 2009
ISBN 978-0-393-33025-0
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"I devoured my first issue. Wish I'd found you sooner."
