An effortless mix of memoir, reportage and broader rumination, it moves from maximum-security prisons to her own body, in the stunning title essay on her work as a medical actor. Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams, published in April, was a surprise New York Times bestseller, thanks to rapturous reviews and wildfire word-of-mouth. But a wide-ranging group of women, black and white, old and young, political or celebrified-think of Lena Dunham and Not That Kind of Girl-have invigorated the essay and reached ever-wider audiences as a result. But, book after book-from Eula Biss’s On Immunity, a personal reflection on the history of vaccination, to collections such as Laura Kipnis’s Men, an examination of bad boys and their appeal (especially to Kipnis), to Daphne Merkin’s The Fame Lunches-suggest there is something in the culture that made 2014 the year of the female essayist.Įssays are hardly a new form Montaigne, who invented them, died more than 400 years ago. And it’s all too easy to pigeonhole the plethora of excellent essay-writing by women this year into some neat fad-the book world’s equivalent of “radiant orchid,” which Pantone declared the colour of 2014. The end of a year brings an onslaught of “best of” cultural lists and its corollary of overarching annual trends. Wilson/Getty Images Graywolf Press Donna Svennevik/Getty Images
