June 2017

When Patrick Madden speaks of his chosen genre, he often calls it “the essay,” according it the respect of the definite article and the weight of tradition. It’s a long, wide, deep, endlessly variable tradition, though lately it’s been flattened out, rather commandeered (I don’t think I exaggerate Pat’s view) by writers with little real analysis to offer, and less insight. Here was the bender to end all benders . . . How I survived my baroquely awful Wall Street job . . . A year of eating only peaches . . . A year of following all speed limits, on all surfaces, in all weathers. (I hope that last memoir/adventure essay really exists somewhere. The others I’ve skipped or abandoned halfway through.)