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Notes From No Man's Land: American Essays (2009)

by Eula Biss(Favorite Author)

4.12 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1555975186 (ISBN13: 9781555975180)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Graywolf Press

review 1: This book left me all but completely aggravated. There were times when I wanted to track down Biss and punch her in the face. Honestly, to me this book seemed like a white woman complaining about her whiteness and almost refusing to approach any situation in a non-white fashion. This book upset me so much and I was so happy to be done with it when I finished. This book could have been better titled "Eula Biss and Her White Guilt". It would have given the reader a much better idea of what the essays were about.
review 2: I kinda seesawed on this one, largely depending on how fractured her storytelling was. The best essays cover race in a deeply personal yet informed way, but without a strong subject to animate an essay, she kinda lapses back into pointillist sto... morerytelling that tries to coax deeper meaning out of a mishmash of anecdotes. There's (rightly) a backlash against the myth of a singular MFA style, but goddamn, Biss doesn't help matters by going into classic University of Iowa lyrical-realist style at every opportunity she gets. Though her prose is almost always great, sometimes it just disguises meaningless nonsense. When she's good, she's GOOD—but that's not the case far too often. less

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