John Jeremiah Sullivan,

Pulphead (2011)

The American essay was having

a moment at the beginning of
the decade, and Pulphead was
smack in the middle. Without
any hard data, I can tell you
that this collection of John
Jeremiah Sullivan’s magazine
features—published primarily
in GQ, but also in The Paris
Review, and Harper’s—was the
only full book of essays most of
my literary friends had read
since Slouching Towards
Bethlehem, and probably one
of the only full books of essays
they had even heard of.
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Well, we all picked a good one.

Every essay in Pulphead is
brilliant and entertaining, and
illuminates some small corner
of the American experience—
even if it’s just one house, with
Sullivan and an aging writer
inside (“Mr. Lytle” is in fact a
standout in a collection with no
filler; fittingly, it won a National
Magazine Award and a
Pushcart Prize). But what are
they about? Oh, Axl Rose,
Christian Rock festivals, living
around the filming of One Tree
Hill, the Tea Party movement,
Michael Jackson, Bunny Wailer,
the influence of animals, and by
god, the Miz (of Real
World/Road Rules Challenge
fame).

But as Dan Kois has pointed

out, what connects these
essays, apart from their general
tone and excellence, is “their
author’s essential curiosity
about the world, his eye for the
perfect detail, and his great
good humor in revealing both
his subjects’ and his own
foibles.” They are also
extremely well written, drawing
much from fictional techniques
and sentence craft, their
literary pleasures so acute and
remarkable that James Wood
began his review of the
collection in The New Yorker
with a quiz: “Are the following
sentences the beginnings of
essays or of short stories?” (It
was not a hard quiz,
considering the context.)

It’s hard not to feel, reading

this collection, like someone
reached into your brain, took
out the half-baked stuff you
talk about with your friends,
researched it, lived it, and
represented it to you smarter
and better and more
thoroughly than you ever
could. So read it in awe if you
must, but read it. –Emily
Temple, Senior Editor