A frank and fascinating exploration of race and racial identity, Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays begins with a series of lynchings and ends with a series of apologies. Eula Biss explores race in America and her response to the topic is informed by the experiences chronicled in these essays - teaching in a Harlem school on the morning of 9/11, reporting from an African American newspaper in San Diego, watching the aftermath of hurricane Katrina from a college town in Iowa, and settling in Chicago's most diverse neighbourhood.
As Biss moves across the country from New York to California to the Midwest, her essays move across from biblical Babylon to the freedmen's schools of Reconstruction to post-war white flight. She brings an eclectic education to the page, drawing variously on the Eagles, Laura Ingalls Wilder, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, religious pamphlets, and reality television. These spare, sometimes lyric essays explore the legacy of race in America, artfully revealing in intimate detail how families, schools, and neighbourhood participate in preserving racial privilege.
'I can't think of an American writer at work today who matches Eula Biss's combination of lyrical precision, exhaustive research, timely provocation, and fiercely examined conscience.' - Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts
'Two of the qualities that make Eula Biss's essays in Notes from No Man's Land compelling and beautiful are precision and independence ... She's important to this moment, important to the opening up of what essays can be, important for setting a standard of integrity and insight, and she's also a joy to read.' - Rebecca Solnit
