Robert Atwan, Series Editor
From Popular Mechanics to Audubon, from The New Criterion to The New Yorker, from Esquire to Ploughshares–the periodicals represented in The Best American Essays 1987 give fair indication of the terrific variety to be found within.
Guest editor Gay Talese has made this year's selections with an eye toward the risky, the provocative, the unexpected. He has looked for well-known writers breaking old barriers, for young up-and-comers whose voices startle with their power. Here, then, are the most talked about, most important, most memorable essays of the year–essays that inform, amuse, provoke, and tug at the heart.
Featured are John Gregory Dunne on novel writing, Robert Stone on cocaine, Richard Ben Cramer on Ted Williams, Phyllis Rose on tolls of torture, Gary Giddins on Jack Benny, and Tom Wolfe on invention in "the land of wizards." It's a banquet of spicy food for thought, compiled by a maverick chef.
Contents
Foreword by Robert Atwan ix
Introduction by Gay Talese xiii
JOHN BARTH. Teacher 1
from Harper's Magazine
RICHARD BEN CRAMER. What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now? 16
from Esquire
JOHN GREGORY DUNNE. On Writing a Novel 52
from Esquire
GRETEL EHRLICH. Spring 58
from Antaeus
DANIEL MARK EPSTEIN. The Case of Harry Houdini 70
from The New Criterion
JOSEPH EPSTEIN. They Said You Was High Class 85
from The American Scholar
GARY GIDDINS. "This Guy Wouldn't Give You the Parsley off His Fish" 101
from The Grand Street
DONALD HALL. Winter 116
from Hood Museum of Art exhibition catalogue
PHILLIP LOPATE. Against Joie de Vivre 131
from Ploughshares
BARRY LOPEZ. The Stone Horse 151
from Antaeus
ELTING E. MORISON. The Master Builder 162
from American Heritage of Invention & Technology
WILLIAM PFAFF. The Lay Intellectual (Apologia Pro Vita Sua) 172
from Salmagundi
SAMUEL PICKERING, JR. Pictures 181
from The Southern Review
GREGOR VON REZZORI. A Stranger in Lolitaland 197
from Vanity Fair
PHYLLIS ROSE. Tools of Torture: An Essay on Beauty and Pain 221
from The Atlantic
SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS. The Inheritance of Tools 226
from The North American Review
ROBERT STONE. A Higher Horror of the Whiteness: Cocaine's Coloring of the American Psyche 235
from Harper's Magazine
CALVIN TRILLIN. Rumors Around Town 245
from The New Yorker
GEOFFREY C. WARD. Tiger in the Road! 269
from Audubon
TOM WOLFE. Land of Wizards 298
from Popular Mechanics
Biographical Notes 315
Notable Essays of 1986 319
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