Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
Devaluing the Essay in the Age of the Standards
On “Showing Up”
2. The Genre of Presence
What an Essay Isn’t
Why Consider the Writer’s Presence?
The Best American Essays
The Problem of Naming
Issues of Taxonomy
Essayists Theorizing Genre and Presence
Tracking Evidence and Presence
On Reading Essays
3. “Historical Thinking” in Essays: Crafting Presence in the Company of Ghosts
Kenneth McClane in the Otherworld
Jamaica Kincaid Traps History
Richard Rodriguez Through the Looking Glass
4. “Error and Illumination”: Crafting Reading Presences
Susan Sontag Seeks Our Gaze
Gerald Early Reads Ciphers
Franklin Burroughs at the Point of Origin
5. Crafting a Self Made of Images in Essays
Charles Simic Adrift in the Night
Mary Gordon Comes to Her Senses
6. Learning the Essay
References
About the Author
Index