The Best American Essays 2022
Edited by Alexander Chee, Series Editor Robert Atwan
I have a wide bookshelf of these collections, the earliest being from 1988, when the guest editor was the remarkable Annie Dillard. My copy is heavily dog-eared. In her introduction, Dillard said “The essay is, and has been, all over the map. There’s nothing you cannot do with it; no subject matter is forbidden, no structure is proscribed. . . The material is the world itself, which, so far, keeps on keeping on. The thinking mind will analyze, and the creative imagination will link instances, and time itself will churn out scenes – scenes unnoticed and lost, or scenes remembered, written, and saved.” I think I was listening to her then, and have been listening since. Now delving into the 2022 edition, with pleasure.