Review: Best American Essays 2013

book review by Dr. Robert Greer

The Best American Essays, edited by Cheryl Strayed, is an anthology worth reading if you enjoy the strictly personal narrative.  And, although the essays in the collection offer a wide breadth of writing approaches, there’s a sameness to them that makes the 2013 collection less than rewarding.

The collection has a round up the usual suspects feel to it, as the essayists deal with the all-too-familiar and the all-too-ordinary.

A few of the essays in the collection come close to home runs.  Kevin  Sampsell’s essay “I’m Jumping Off the Bridge,”  in which a suicidal customer turns a rather ordinary day on its heels by walking into a bookstore to commit suicide, and in turn connects with a clerk whose life the suicidal man saves several months later.   

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