Sometimes, what breaks us also cures us.
In 2021 when reality was all too real, sitting on my breastbone like a weight, I was saved (in some manner) by real stories. The work of brave and soulful authors welcomed me into their lives, reconnected me with parts of myself and sketched out a blueprint for finding kinship again with other people. They supplied just enough faith and softness to live through another really real day.
As I begin a look at my favorite reads published in 2021 (fiction and poetry are to come), here are my favorite nonfiction titles, alphabetical by author.
Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
A virtuosic humanity marks what is, ultimately, my favorite book of 2021. Abdurraqib writes of race, creativity, performance, misunderstanding and empathy in a way that is lyrical and devastating. He is the sort of writer to deconstruct a social or cultural myth and you sense the rubble coming down all around you (and within you); and yet, as he swings a sledgehammer in one hand, you watch him pick up an implement of rebuilding in the other. His prose never leaves us without hope or promise, and that is a wonderful gift.
Daniel Bowman Jr., On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, and the Gifts of Neurodiversity
There is an almost peerless soulfulness to Dan Bowman’s work, as evidenced by this multifaceted memoir on faith and autism. He reaches across and around genre in a book that is as complicated and lived-in as one man’s story, and as winsome an invitation into the greater #OwnVoices movement as you’ll find. (I wrote about Bowman’s book here for Fathom Magazine.)
Costica Bradatan and Ed Simon (editors), The God Beat: What Journalism Says about Faith and Why It Matters
Bradatan and Simon faithfully collect examples of a 21st-century religion journalism, writings which plumb the depths of what we believe—and offer more evidence for my working thesis that the tenets of faith and reporting resemble each other at the level of family. (I wrote about the book here for Fathom.)
Nick Cave, Stranger Than Kindness
In this volume, the singer-songwriter, filmmaker, author and all-around raconteur sifts the artifacts of his singular artistic life, telling his story in a different way—through handwritten notes, photographs, collected artwork and brief, spiritual prose that serves as connective tissue. Cave is a force of nature, and breaking the storm down to constituent elements here helps us appreciate him all the more.
Maurice Chammah, Let the Lord Sort Them
Chammah’s reporting on the death penalty never drifts into advocacy. But the work is so clear-eyed, so thorough, principled and revealing, you can’t help but come to a single conclusion—our justice system cannot live up to its ideals while we kill in one another’s names.
Melissa Febos, Girlhood
One mark of an extraordinary writer is their capacity to make their reality feel real to you. I didn’t grow up a girl, with the demands, delights and dangers Melissa Febos faced. And yet her gorgeous, wrenching prose left me breathless and emboldened at all the right times. Whether in finely-tuned scene-setting or melismatic sentences that reach into the maw, retrieving joy and heaviness, Febos’ work rings with truth.
Kristen Radtke, Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness
A spare and stunning work of graphic nonfiction, Radtke turns loneliness over and examines it from many angles: scientific, political, psychological, pop-culture and personal. Through gripping words and illustrations, she unveils one of our worst-kept secrets: that we miss each other and that, only through the gifts of empathy and presence, will we begin to fill the vacuums we feel every day. (I wrote about Radtke’s work here for The Curator.)
Paisley Rekdal, Appropriate
Rekdal carries the freight of heavy questions—What, exactly, is cultural appropriation and where do we see it?—as bravely and gracefully as a poet and teacher should. Never crowding out the reader with damnation, yet prompting frequent looks in the mirror, Rekdal’s work should be required reading as we plough forward together, cultivating ideals and principles about the how and who of storytelling.
Sarah Welch-Larson, Becoming Alien
Welch-Larson’s volume on the Alien film franchise reads like a feat of integration—she stitches science fiction, theodicy, feminist theology and more together without showing the seams. But the further you go into her work, you tumble into something truly special; the author not-so-merely reveals that all of this and all of us are connected, caught up in the contours of these stories and an even more extended narrative universe.
Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart
The Japanese Breakfast musician opens her memoir with one of the great first chapters in recent memory, then both lengthens and tightens the narrative, crafting a slow, sustained meditation on grief, growth, family and identity. Zauner beautifully, painstakingly illustrates how we do not lose what we love—or become ourselves—all at once, but one mundane and meaningful moment at a time.