In The Next American Essay, John D'Agata takes a literary tour of lyric essays written by the masters of the craft. Beginning with 1975 and John McPhee's ingenious piece, "The Search for Marvin Gardens," D'Agata selects an example of creative nonfiction for each subsequent year. These essays are unrestrained, elusive, explosive, mysterious―a personal lingual playground. They encompass and illuminate culture, myth, history, romance, and sex. Each essay is a world of its own, a world so distinctive it resists definition.

Contributors include:

Sherman Alexie
David Antin
Jenny Boully
Anne Carson
Guy Davenport
Lydia Davis
Joan Didion
Annie Dillard
Thalia Field
Albert Goldbarth
Susan Griffin
Theresa Hak Kung Cha
Jamaica Kincaid
Wayne Koestenbaum
Barry Lopez
John McPhee
Carole Maso
Harry Mathews
Susan Mitchell
Fabio Morabito
Mary Ruefle
David Shields
Dennis Silk
Susan Sontag
Alexander Theroux
George W. S. Trow
David Foster Wallace
Eliot Weinberger
Joe Wenderoth
James Wright