Evans, Harold M, ed. The Best American magazine writing 2001 - Book Review

Kliatt, March, 2002 by Michael P. Healy

Perseus, Public Affairs. 477p. c2001. 1-58648-088-X. $15.00. SA

This second annual collection by the American Society of Magazine Editors offers 18 essays and one short story chosen as the best in categories such as feature writing, criticism, profiles, and public interest. (Poetry is not included, nor is photography.) Of the hundreds of magazines published in the U.S., only 13 are represented here.

Some selections emphasize the writer's personal experiences. Gretel Ehrlich reports on a hunting party in Greenland where she oddly urges the hunters not to kill their prey, and Robert Kurson tells about going to visit a former high school teacher who is in prison for sexually assaulting and murdering teenage boys. In a delightful rumination on how mail has changed from the 19th century to the age of email, Anne Fadiman gives us a peek at her famous father as well as at the invention of the postage stamp. Most of the essays are less personal but equally stylish. One of the most interesting is William Langewiesche's "The Million-Dollar Nose," a profile of Robert Parker, whose writing on wine has transformed an industry and affected international relationships. Political writing comes plain (hard-hitting reports from Time magazine on the corruption money brings to politics) and fancy (David Foster Wallace on the road with John McCain for Rolling Stone). Donna Tartt's appreciation of J.F. Powers provides a useful service, but James Wolcott's attempt to resuscitate Bobby Darin's reputation seems more an exercise in irony than an actual analysis. Younger readers, attuned to the pleasures of TV marketing, might especially enjoy the essay on the pitchmen (and inventors) of the Veg-O-Matic and the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie. The author makes the argument that if such hucksters had invented the VCR we'd actually be able to use it for more than playing movies.

The lone short story, Robert Olen Butler's "Fair Warning," first published in Zoetrope: All-Story, provides a clever first-person narrative of an auctioneer who wins the bid for her own independence, but is it the absolute "best" magazine story of the year? The helpful list of finalists in all categories gives the readers some other leads. School librarians and teachers should be warned: contemporary magazine writing has become steadily more vulgar in diction and topic. Elizabeth Gilbert's profile of Hank Williams's grandson is replete with crude language, and some of the other essays have passages not suitable for classroom use. Michael P. Healy, English Teacher, Wood River H.S., Hailey, ID