Notes from No Man's Land

"Notes from No Man's Land . . . is a beautiful exercise in consciousness; in bringing both intelligence and experience to bear on a subject that has implication for the way one behaves in the world."—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

"Biss is telling us the story of our country—one we never saw coming."—Lizzie Skurnick, Chicago Tribune

"I fought with this book. I shouted, 'Amen!' I cursed at it for being so wildly wrong and right. It's so smart, combative, surprising, and sometimes shocking that it kept me twisting and turning in my seat like I was on some kind of socio-political roller coaster ride. Eula Biss writes with equal parts beauty and terror. I love it."—Sherman Alexie

"'Gangs are real, but they are also conceptual,' Eula Biss says, and the wide embrace of that observation speaks well for her essays, which are always ideologically alive even as they are grounded in fascinating details: children's dolls, the history of telephone poles, the saga of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. But this book is no miscellany. All of Biss's explorations finally address race in the United States, from someone whose life seems devoted to that great pondering . . . and so this is an essential (and quintessential) American book."—Albert Goldbarth

"Like Blake, that other mystic poet, [Biss] sees the world in a grain of sand. Without missing a beat, she looks at a telephone pole as a symbol of our universal connection, the intrusion of technology, an instrument of lynch mobs, a reminder of her grandfather's death, and a symbol of life sprouting new leaves even after it is strung with wires."—Noel Ignatiev

"Essays about America and race: I know what you're thinking. You have absolutely no idea—how iconoclastic this book is, how unpredictable, how provocative, how complicit, how (potentially) transfiguring. An utterly beautiful and deeply serious performance."—David Shields

"Biss calls our attention to things so intrinsic to our lives they have become invisible, such as telephone poles and our assumptions about race . . . With nods to Didion and Baldwin, her sinuous essays dart off and zigzag, and we hold on tight. Biss compares the lesson plans for freed slaves in Reconstruction-era public schools with what is taught to today's African American students, and chronicles her experiences as a minority in black worlds, including her stint as a reporter for an African American community newspaper in San Diego. Matters of race, sense of self, and belonging involve everyone, and Biss' crossing-the-line perspective will provoke fresh analysis of our fears and expectations."—Booklist (starred review)

“Nearly 20 years in the making, this debut collection from a prolific children's author won the Poetry Foundation's Emily Dickinson First Book Award . . . evidently, it was worth the wait. Written in an open, conversational voice. . . Empathetic accessible reading.”—Library Journal

"An intense , sensitive author and journalist with a restless spirit and a whipcrack wit, Biss presents a collection of short essays on race in America that spans an impressive range . . . . Americans of any background, while they may disagree with her point of view, will see a country they recognize in settings as diverse as deepest Brooklyn or a Mexican border retreat."—Publishers Weekly