The Best American Essays 2005 (The Best American Series) - Softcover

ROBERT ATWAN has been the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986. He has edited numerous literary anthologies and written essays and reviews for periodicals nationwide.

Introduction Not long ago, I went to New Hampshire to watch some dogsled races, and during a break in the action I wandered into a hobby shop on the main drag of the town. It was a dusty old store, dim and crowded, the shelves loaded with the usual array of hobby gear - Popsicle sticks, model railroad switches, beads and buttons and toxic glue. I have no use for Popsicle sticks once the Popsicles are eaten, and no wish to build miniature railroads or embellish the surfaces of the objects in my home, so it seemed there was nothing in the store for me. But as I was about to leave, a large box behind the cash register caught my eye. It was, according to the label, the amazing Skilcraft Visible Cow, an anatomically accurate model kit featuring "highly detailed parts representing the structures of the skeleton and vital organs." The picture on the label showed a big cow - a Guernsey, perhaps? or maybe a Milking Shorthorn? - made of some sort of clear glossy plastic. The exterior of the Visible Cow was invisible. The visible part of it was its innards - the major bones, the most popular organs, the spine, the ribs, the tongue. It was a marvelous construction, a complete inversion of the usual order of things: everything you usually expect to see of a cow was see-through, and everything you usually cant make out was there, plain as day. The insides of the cow were held together by its transparent shell, which gave order and structure to the jumble of guts and skeleton and plumbing. I purchased the Visible Cow, and putting it together (which, according to the label, will allow me to "Study Anatomy As You Build Your Visible Cow Model") is on my long- term To Do list. In the meantime, I keep the box in my office so I can look at it every day. Which brings me, more directly than it might seem, to the subject of essays. Anytime I read an essay, write an essay, or, as is the case here, sort through and select the very best of a years essays, I find myself wondering what an essay is - what makes up the essential parts and structure of the form. What I like to do (with a nod here to the Skilcraft company) is study the essays anatomy as I build it. Is an essay a written inquiry? A meditation? A memoir? Does it concern the outside world or just probe the writers interior world? Can it be funny? Does it have answers or does it just raise questions? Does it argue a point or is it a cool, impartial view of the world? Does it have a prescribed tone or is it absolutely individual - a conversation between the writer and reader, as idiosyncratic as any conversation might ever be? As near as I can figure, an essay can be most of the above - it can be a query, a reminiscence, a persuasive tract, an exploration; it can look inward or outward; it can crack a lot of jokes. What it need not be is objective. An essay can certainly present facts and advocate a position, but that seems quite different from objectivity, whereby a writer just delivers in