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Dec 30, 2014lukasevansherman rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Since reading Charles D'Ambrosio's excellent collection "Loitering," I've gotten back into the literary essay. D'Ambrosio contributes one of the many laudatory quotations (sometimes I think they do more harm than good) to this book of essays by Leslie Jamison, who takes pain, suffering, and empathy as her great themes. It's intriguing idea to unify her essays, which cover the West Memphis 3, female illness, travel, the writer James Agee, and her own loss (romantic) and physical pain (an assault). To call them far ranging is a nice way of saying that she goes off on many tangents, is overly reliant of quotes from prominent writers like Sontag, Dickens, Yeats, and Kundera. Too often she comes off as self-absorbed rather than empathetic and she is too liberal with episodes from her own life, which just aren't that interesting. If I hadn't just read D'Ambrosio, I might be kinder, but he sets the bar quite high for essays. Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize!