Make it scream, make it burn : essays

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Title:

Make it scream, make it burn : essays

Author:

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- author.

Uniform Title:

Essays. Selections

ISBN:

9780316259637

Edition:

1st ed.

Physical Description:

ix, 257 pages ; 25 cm.

Contents:

52 blue -- We tell ourselves stories in order to live again -- Layover story -- Sim life -- Up in Jaffna -- No tongue can tell -- Make it scream, make it burn -- Maximum exposure -- Rehearsals -- The long trick -- The real smoke -- Daughter of a ghost -- Museum of broken hearts -- The quickening.

Subject Term:

American essays -- 21st century.

Genre:

Essays

Added Author:

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- 52 blue.

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- We tell ourselves stories in order to live again.

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- Layover story.

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- Sim life.

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- Up in Jaffna.

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- No tongue can tell.

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- Maximum exposure.

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- Rehearsals.

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- Long trick.

Jamison, Leslie, 1983- Real smoke.

Summary:

With the virtuosic synthesis of memoir, criticism, and journalism for which Leslie Jamison has been so widely acclaimed, the fourteen essays in Make It Scream, Make It Burn explore the oceanic depths of longing and the reverberations of obsession. Among Jamison's subjects are 52 Blue, deemed "the loneliest whale in the world"; the eerie past-life memories of children; the devoted citizens of an online world called Second Life; the haunted landscape of the Sri Lankan Civil War; and an entire museum dedicated to the relics of broken relationships. Jamison follows these examinations to more personal reckonings -- with elusive men and ruptured romances, with marriage and maternity -- in essays about eloping in Las Vegas, becoming a stepmother, and giving birth. Often compared to Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, and widely considered one of the defining voices of her generation, Jamison interrogates her own life with the same nuance and rigor she brings to her subjects. The result is a provocative reminder of the joy and sustenance that can be found in the unlikeliest of circumstances.

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	814.6 JAM	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	814.6 JAM	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

From the "astounding" ( Entertainment Weekly ), "spectacularly evocative" ( The Atlantic ), and "brilliant" ( Los Angeles Times ) author of the New York Times bestsellers The Recovering and The Empathy Exams comes a return to the essay form in this expansive book.

With the virtuosic synthesis of memoir, criticism, and journalism for which Leslie Jamison has been so widely acclaimed, the fourteen essays in Make It Scream, Make It Burn explore the oceanic depths of longing and the reverberations of obsession.

Among Jamison's subjects are 52 Blue, deemed "the loneliest whale in the world"; the eerie past-life memories of children; the devoted citizens of an online world called Second Life; the haunted landscape of the Sri Lankan Civil War; and an entire museum dedicated to the relics of broken relationships. Jamison follows these examinations to more personal reckonings -- with elusive men and ruptured romances, with marriage and maternity -- in essays about eloping in Las Vegas, becoming a stepmother, and giving birth.

Often compared to Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, and widely considered one of the defining voices of her generation, Jamison interrogates her own life with the same nuance and rigor she brings to her subjects. The result is a provocative reminder of the joy and sustenance that can be found in the unlikeliest of circumstances.

Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

One of the fall's most anticipated books: Time, Entertainment Weekly, O, Oprah Magazine, Boston Globe, Newsweek, Esquire, Seattle Times, Baltimore Sun , BuzzFeed, BookPage, The Millions, Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, Minneapolis Star Tribune , Lit Hub, Women's Day , AV Club, Nylon, Bustle, Goop, Goodreads, Book Riot, Yahoo! Lifestyle, Pacific Standard, The Week, and Romper.

Author Notes

Leslie Jamison was born in Washington D.C. in 1983. She has worked as a baker, an office temp, an innkeeper, a tutor, and a medical actor. She is the author of The Gin Closet and The Empathy Exams: Essays. She is currently finishing a doctoral dissertation at Yale University about addiction narratives.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

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.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

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. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

An edgy spirit of inquiry, a fascination with obsession, a penchant for sharing personal experiences, and incandescent writing skills make Jamison (The Recovering, 2018) an exciting premier essayist. This collection of 14 investigations takes its title from Jamison's passionate elucidation of how James Agee turned his never-published article about his sojourn among poor sharecroppers in Alabama, with photographer Walker Evans, into the tumultuous narrative for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). Agee's torment over the ethics of turning other people's suffering into one's art speaks to Jamison's own concerns and stokes her profile of American photographer Annie Appel, who spent decades taking pictures of a Mexican family. Jamison also chronicles the world's infatuation with 52 Blue, a lone whale with a unique song; a journey to civil-war-battered Sri Lanka; surprising revelations about the virtual world of Second Life, and, on the confessional front, failed relationships; her Vegas marriage to a native she met in New York, a fellow writer; a dive into the folklore and realities of stepmotherhood, and a resplendently moving and redemptive birth story. Magnetizing and thought-provoking.--Donna Seaman Copyright 2010 Booklist

Library Journal Review

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

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Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

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