"Jamison has emerged as a definitive chronicler of human connection and the beauty of mundanity...With this brilliant new collection that rigorously interrogates the human condition, Leslie Jamison affirms why she's the essayist of the moment."—David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly "Razor-sharp...Leslie Jamison has been hailed as the newborn lovechild of Joan Didion and Susan Sontag. Even for a writer without Jamison's generous helpings of talent and success, it can't be an easy thing to live up to. And yet, she does, and then some...The essays are reported, but also confessional, weaving the realities of disparate others onto Jamison's own experiences to create something rich, human and, at moments, so smart and revealing the reader finds herself gasping."—Samantha Shoech, San Francisco Chronicle "Intelligent and vibrant...Make It Scream, Make It Burn tackles the all-too-human topic of yearning and its oft-corollary, obsession. Both gurgle beneath the writer's sonorous and captivating prose."—Janet Kinosian, Los Angeles Times "A dazzling collection about the outer reaches of human connection...Acute in her analysis and nourishing in her observations, Jamison is at the height of her powers here as she investigates what we owe one another."—Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire "Lovely and evocative...Most of these essays are heavyweight boxers."—New York Times Book Review "Leslie Jamison's astonishingly formidable, restless intellect has gifted us two monumental works of nonfiction...Here, she turns her exacting eye on subjects such as the loneliest whale in the world and a Croatian museum filled with the effluvia of failed relationships."—O, The Oprah Magazine "A pleasure to read. We can see Jamison let go of her carefully wrought personal narrative and open herself to the unknown."—Sheila McClear, Washington Post "Illuminating and ruminative...Jamison is positively brilliant when penetrating a subject and unraveling its layers of meaning...Fans of the author's unique brand of perceptiveness will be delighted."—Publishers Weekly "Provocative...compassionate, curious and humble...Jamison acknowledges that she has skin in the game, and her wise, urgent writing is stronger for it."—Chris Hewitt, Minneapolis Star Tribune "Like the glass in a kaleidoscope, Jamison's fine-tuned attention seems capable of refracting whatever subject it touches. When I finally looked up from the page it was with a renewed sense of wonder."—Cornelia Channing, The Paris Review "These perceptive essays demonstrate that the best-selling author of The Empathy Exams continues to explore the limits of human connections."—Elle "In a full-themed essay collection, Leslie Jamison breaks down doors on love, loss, birth, motherhood and more...The collection boasts joy among the rubble of life's biggest challenges."—Newsweek "Insightful and searching, exciting and staggering. Jamison interweaves memoir, journalism, and cultural criticism into essays that explore topics like motherhood, romance, and relationships."—Good Housekeeping "A masterwork...Leslie Jamison has long been known as a force in American writing for both her intellect and empathy...Jamison draws connections to her own lifea challenging dance that can only be pulled off by the most masterful of writers."—Louis Cheslaw, Condé Nast Traveler "A roaming, wide-ranging collection, grounded through Jamison's lucid, unflinching prose, leading to a singularly empathetic, moving reading experience."—Nylon "As riveting as ever, Jamison's writing elicited within me many of the same responses I felt while reading her previous essay collection, The Empathy Exams : enlightenment, amusement, and of course, empathy itself."—Zakiya Harris, The Rumpus "Jamison is one of my favorite working essayists...[In] Make It Scream, Make It Burn [she] dances between the personal, the critical, and the observational, showing her deftness when it comes to each form."—Jeva Lange, The Week "Richly diverse . . . The pieces in Make It Scream, Make It Burn are all written with care and intricacy, drawing readers in and making us care . . . Jamison's observational skills, genuine empathy, and lack of sentimentality create an intelligent blending of journalism, scholarship, and memoir."—Pam Kingsbury, Library Journal "Leslie Jamison is a master of blending memoir, criticism and journalism...[her] characteristic fusion of the intellectual and emotional is in full force here, cementing comparisons of her work to that of Joan Didion and Susan Sontag."—Christy Lynch, Bookpage "Even as she documents the experiences of othersSri Lankan soldiers, Second Life superusers, eminent writers and photographersJamison is keenly aware of how her personal experiences shape the way she reports their stories. It's this knowledge that propels the collection, along with her rejection of cynicism in favor of being open to new ideas and experiences, no matter how foreign they may seem."—Maris Kreizman, Pacific Standard "To fortify and enlarge the world through eloquenceapt descriptions of Jamison's new collection...Another wonderful book from this gifted writer."—The Millions "Lyrical...There is something distinctly empowering in...Jamison's employment of the selfin [her] collapsing of the theoretical and the experienced."—Katherine Lucky, Commonweal Magazine "Jamison has emerged as a giant in the world of creative nonfiction. She returns with a beautifully compiled collection of essays reflecting on obsession and longing."—Entertainment Weekly "Stunning...Essential...Make It Scream, Make It Burn expands on the efforts of The Empathy Exams ...Here we see the territory Jamison's writing inhabits: self-questioning while at the same time empathetic, dubious and credible at once...What Jamison is after is a kind of radical honesty: the ongoing inquiry of a mind at work. That this is not a new issue, but infuses all her writing, is the whole idea...For Jamison, interaction comes with all sorts of risk, not least that in getting close to other people, we can't help but leave ourselves exposed. Still, what other choice do we have? To be human is to be vulnerable."—David L. Ulin, Four Columns "Magnetizing and thought-provoking...An edgy spirit of inquiry, a penchant for sharing personal experiences, and incandescent writing skills make Jamison an exciting premier essayist."—Donna Seaman, Booklist "Leslie Jamison is a writer of supreme eloquence and intelligence who deftly combines journalistic, critical and memoiristic approaches to produce essays that linger long in the memory."—LitHub "Jamison interrogates a variety of fascinating subjects, including her own life, in her praiseworthy second essay collection... Make It Scream, Make It Burn confirms the praise heaped on 2014's The Empathy Exams for her uncanny ability to blend perceptive reportage with intensely personal essays in consistently fresh, dynamic prose."—Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness "In her new essay collection, Jamison allows herself to roam beyond the boundaries of one issue, and instead latches her powerful, precise observations to a number of unconventional topics."—Cristina Arreola, Bustle
03/01/2020
Jamison (The Empathy Exams ) reads her own work here, a collection of 14 essays categorized into "Longing," "Looking," and "Dwelling." The author writes about 52 Blue, a blue whale with a unique song who never found a mate, making him a symbol of longing and loneliness for the humans who knew about him. She writes extensively about the passionate devotees of the virtual world Second Life and how their online experiences compared with their "real" lives. A fascinating essay considers a white photographer who captured the same Mexican family for many years and the impossibility of maintaining journalistic distance when one has known the subjects for decades. There are no weak essays in this collection. Jamison is a compelling narrator. Her compassion, curiosity, and concerns are expressed in a thoughtful manner, inviting the listener to share the contemplations with the author. VERDICT The blend of journalism, autobiography, and criticism makes for a powerful whole; this audiobook is highly recommended.—B. Allison Gray, Goleta Valley Lib., CA
Author Leslie Jamison narrates her latest essay collection in a quiet yet assured voice that will immediately draw listeners in. Her topics are wide-ranging—from the work of James Agee to Civil War photography and her experience of being a stepmother. Despite her disparate subjects, the collection is cohesive, as Jamison returns again and again to the relationship between self and other, artist and subject, the world as it is and our experience of it. Her narration is especially poignant when she recounts vulnerable moments from her own life. Throughout the audiobook her warm voice will make listeners feel as if they are sitting with her over coffee as she regales them with keen insights and startling observations. L.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
06/03/2019
These illuminating and ruminative essays from Jamison (The Recovering ) explore obsession and alienation, combining reportage, memoir, and philosophy. The first (and most successful) section is largely focused outward, beginning with a profile of “52 Blue,” a blue whale with an extraordinarily high-pitched song who never found a mate, but did garner many human admirers who identified with his (perceived) loneliness. Jamison moves on to considering reincarnation, through uncanny cases of children seemingly remembering past lives, taking an approach “skeptical of knee-jerk skepticism itself.” In Part II, Jamison progresses into aesthetics and literary theory, discussing an exhibit of Civil War photography and James Agee’s sociological tome about Alabama tenant farmers, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men , which notably “documents the process of documentation itself.” Part III is decidedly more personal, as Jamison details struggles with intimacy and a series of doomed relationships, hitting a high note with her consideration of the evil stepmother archetype in the light of becoming a stepmother herself. Jamison is positively brilliant when penetrating a subject and unraveling its layers of meaning, such as how 52 Blue represents “not just one single whale as metaphor for loneliness, but metaphor itself as salve for loneliness.” Fans of the author’s unique brand of perceptiveness will be delighted. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie. (Sept.)
2019-05-26 A collection of essays, some journalistic, some critical, some memoiristic, all marked by the author's distinct intelligence.
In "Mark My Words. Maybe." an essay not included here, Jamison (Director, Graduate Nonfiction Program/Columbia Univ.; The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath , 2018, etc.) recounts getting Roman playwright Terence's quotation Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto ("I am human, nothing human is alien to me") tattooed on her arm. That apothegm, which also served as the epigraph to her first collection, The Empathy Exams (2014), is put to the test in her latest book. Whether encountering a boy in a wheelchair in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, or a pushy woman on a layover in Houston, the author wonders at the limits of empathy. In "We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order To Live Again," she recounts her interview with a man who claimed he was "not a gun nut" even as he handled two guns and left "a collection of bullets spread across his comforter" for her to find: "Had I been foolishly unwilling to acknowledge that some people were alien to me? Did I need to identify with all the gun-loving men of this world? Was it naive or even ethically irresponsible to believe I should find common ground with everyone, or that it was even possible?" Jamison's other main intellectual concern is the exploitative role of the journalist. In "Maximum Exposure," she offers a sympathetic portrait of the photographer Annie Appel, who must ask her subjects, "Can I take this moment of your life and make my art from it?" The common cause she finds with the journalistic skepticism of Janet Malcolm and James Agee is odd, though, considering how many of her essays begin as reporting. Jamison thinks and writes so elegantly, the subjects that serve as many of her jumping-off points risk feeling superfluous to the real business of her essaying. Still, as with nearly all of her writing, this one is well worth reading.
A commendable essay collection by one of the leading practitioners of the form.