Magic Hours

December 11, 2017
Fiction writer Bissell (Apostle) has compiled a series of his essays, ranging from brilliant to merely good, that were published between 2000 and 2016 in places such as Harper’s, the Boston Review, and the New Yorker. What draws them together, Bissell writes, is the “magic” of the creative process. The best essays include “Escanaba’s Magic Hour,” about a movie made in Bissell’s hometown in Northern Michigan, an essay that hits a perfect balance of pathos and humor. “The Secret Mainstream” nails filmmaker Werner Herzog’s unhinged brilliance, while “Grief and the Outsider,” about a group of renegade writers, moves from ridicule to self-awareness, generosity, and sensitivity. The opening essay, “Unflowered Aloes,” an elegy to writers who bloom unseen, is too relentlessly grim, while the final essay, Bissell’s introduction to a reprint of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, seems like a jigsaw piece from another puzzle. This is a male-focused collection, despite a few nods to female writers. The testosterone rises when readers encounter Jim Harrison shooting rattlesnakes in “The Theory and Practice of Not Giving a Shit” and, later, two dozen drawings of vaginas in William T. Vollman’s studio. One could be forgiven for wanting Little Women on hand for relief. Nevertheless, these essays are thought-provoking, and the best of them are worth the price of the book.