The best American essays 2004

Foreword / Robert Atwan

Introduction / Louis Menand

America, look at your shame / James Agee

Envy / Kathryn Chetkovich

The last Americans / Jared Diamond

The Arctic hedonist / Anne Fadiman

Caught / Jonathan Franzen

The unreal thing / Adam Gopnik

A sudden illness / Laura Hillenbrand

Passover in Baghdad / Tim Judah

My 80's / Wayne Koestenbaum

My Yiddish / Leonard Michaels

Bix and Flannery / Ben Miller

Against cool / Rick Moody

Yarn / Kyoko Mori

Lifelike / Susan Orlean

Rock 101 / Alex Ross

The mind's eye / Oliver Sacks

My lost city / Luc Sante

Arrow and wound / Mark Slouka

My father is a book / Janna Malamud Smith

Bullet in my neck / Gerald Stern

Amor perdido / Tennnessee Williams

An enlarged heart / Cynthia Zarin

Biographical notes

Notable essays of 2002.