I love Jamison's essay collections! This one has been a great resource for my intro level writing courses and has been on the book lists.

The 14 essays in Jamison's most recent collection reflect evolutions in Jamison’s interests and personal life. The subjects of the essays range from reincarnation to visiting post-war Sri Lanka to marriage and pregnancy. But across them all, Jamison returns to what anthropologists would call a stance of “self reflexivity.” Her book constantly asks what is the relationship of the researcher (or writer) to her subject? How does this relationship act upon and inform the subject, the writer and the writing itself?

Another amazing essay collection from Leslie Jamison. I particularly enjoyed her essays on Second Life and the lonely whale. Already purchased a copy for my library collection.

Leslie Jamison is one of my favorite non-fiction authors. I love the way she views the world, and the care she places in the words she uses to describe it. This was a fantastic essay collection, and as such, some were more moving and touching than others. I read Leslie Jamison for lines like this "She had a deep desire to understand her life as something structured by patterns, woven through with signs and signals and voices. She was hungry for a logic that might arrange all the isolated points of her experience into a legible constellation."

MAKE IT SCREAM, MAKE IT BURN is a collection of essays about life, love, loneliness, and finding the meaning. By combining her own memoire and life with the in-depth knowledge of representation and good investigative journalism, Jamison brings the reader a wonderful collection of interesting essays.

MAKE IT SCREAM, MAKE IT BURN consists of 14 essays grouped in three sections: “Longing”, “Looking” and “Dwelling”. In the first part, “Longing”, there are four essays which all tell stories about people living lives that one might find a bit odd. So, here one will find stories about people who believe they are closely connected with the whale called Blue 52, people who believe in past life and those who find a different kind of life on the Second Life platform. Here Jamison opens a whole new dimension of how we live our lives and how and why we connect with not just one another but also with some past events and even animals. Each of the four essays in this part is a mind blowing.

In the second part “Looking”, Jamison focuses on representation, mainly through photography. These essays combine storytelling with a bit more theory on representation, and Susan Sontag’s work on photography. After a magnificent insight into different and unlikely people lives in the first part, “Looking” was more theoretical and dry. Nevertheless, Jamison’s style is still visible; this beautiful combination of storytelling, personal memoires, and the focus on the topic she is writing about. The first essay in this section “Up in Jaffna”, about her travel to Sri Lanka, I would single out as the most interesting one, due to its vividness and approach to the topic of aftermaths of war.

Essays clustered in “Dwelling”, the third section, are the most intimate ones. It is not only because they deal with love and different kind of relationships (current, ex, stepmom-stepdaughter, etc.) but also because of Jamison’s weaving her own intimate fragments in these essays. The essay that I was most interested in was “Museum of Broken Hearts”, primarily due to my own curiosity and the desire to find out how the museum, which is situated in my home town, is seen through someone else eyes. I got more than I hoped for. Jamison wrote a brilliant piece about history and development of this unique Museum of the Broken Relationships. Museum of the Broken Relationships is actually, a “collection of ordinary objects hung on walls, tucked under glass, backlit on pedestals…”. What these objects have in common is the fact that they used to be a part of relationship between two people. The relationship might have been an amorous one, it could also be it was a family relationship, or a friendship. I immensely enjoyed in reading it, because Jamison does not only shed the light on the history of the museum, but she also shares her own story about the object that might be in this museum and the reason why she decided not to give it to the museum. Furthermore, she as well brought in a different perspective on the importance of memories and melancholy in people’s lives.

Some of the essays can be read like a fiction, though they are 100% non-fiction, and that is the ingredient that makes them so exceptional. Jamison is an outstanding storyteller. The fashion of combining the central story she follows with her own life and involvement during the creative process is absolutely magnificent. MAKE IT SCREAM, MAKE IT BURN is full proof of her writing skills and the mastery of the craft.

This was my first of Jamison's and now I can't wait to read more of her stellar writing. I loved the way it was structured, in three parts each with its own theme. Some of the essays resonated more than others, but they all grappled with interesting subject matter and topics that made me reflect on my own experiences/opinions/curiosities/etc. I've had The Empathy Exams on my shelf for far too long and reading this was just the motivation I needed to finally dust it off!

This is a great collection. I love how the author broke the book up into 3 separate sections to display loneliness, the relationships between artist and subject and finally about the author's personal struggles such as being a stepmother, addiction, romance, and pregnancy. I am definitely going to be looking into reading more from this author.

Gut-wrenchingly beautiful. I had to read this in small doses, but was sorry to see it end. I've already recommended it several times.

This is one wild journey of essays through varying topics. The one word I would use to describe this author is enthusiasm. She throws everything she's got into each essay. I recommend this to any essay lovers, of course. And to people who loved Trick Mirror.

While the writing is memorable, the topics of these essays weren't particularly compelling. The randomness of the subjects led me to feel disconnected.

I had recently finished Jamison's The Recovering when I saw that her latest collection of essays was available for review. Well, let's be honest, I didn't know it was a collection of essays (not that I'm opposed to a collection of essays); I just picked it up because of the author.

Like all collections of essays I've read, this one has essays that are stronger than others. Some had me wondering if I might not be smart enough for Jamison's writing, especially when I looked at reviews where they raved about the very essays that least impressed me. Others were entirely unique in their approach, including 52 Blue and We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live Again, an essay about children who have memories that can seemingly only be attributed to a prior life.

There are essays about journalists inserting themselves into the lives of their subjects without exploiting them. One, the title essay, confused me; it seemed to go on and on and Jamison seemed to berate author James Agee for exploiting the family he was living with and inserting himself too fully into the story. Another, Maximum Exposure, photographer Annie Appel becomes deeply involved in the family she photographs over 20 years and Jamison seems to have no problem with that. Frankly, I liked that essay much more. My favorite of this series of essays, though was one about the Mathew Brady's Civil War photography.

I'm sure the final group of essays won't be any of the professional reviewers favorites, but, as the most personal essays, I connected the best with them. It felt like I was back to reading Jamison's memoir. Looking for more of that may have been part of my problem with the earlier essays; had I gone in better prepared, I might have appreciated some of those more. But some of my favorite essayists rely heavily on their personal lives and it's a style I enjoy reading. Perhaps the reader in me is always looking to connect with books even as I am trying to learn from reading them.

Mostly already-published essays. Signature Leslie Jamison: intelligent and wrought. This collection had me alternating wildly. Sometimes my admiration was uncontainable, and other times I felt kind of smothered by this book. Jamison has exceptional control over the essay form--every turn feels deliberate. Sometimes, though, this can cross over into something sort of hyper-controlled, manicured, and a little claustrophobic.

Despite my aversion for journalists who filter a narrative through their own lens, and 4-5 lines of obligatory philosophical mumbo-jumbo that the author layers thickly in each article given here, this book is still worthy of a reader's time and an insightful reward.

Loved '52 Blue,' the reincarnation fable 'We tell ourselves stories in order to live again,' 'Layover story,' life on one internet site before fb, twitter etc. 'Sim/Second Life,' civil war photographs memorabilia 'No tongue can tell,' James Agee's weight of witnessing and actual participation in life of others 'Make it scream, make it burn,' following a subject / story through years 'Maximum Exposure,' on weddings and loneliness 'Rehearsals.'

The rest not so much.

Memorable Lines:

- After nine years, I understand nothing. In those early negatives, I see cornflakes and cigarettes and stubborn winds and sudden laughter. I see everything the photos knew alongside everything they didn't know yet, and this unknowing is one more definition of love: committing to a story you can't fully imagine when it begins. (Maximum Exposure)

- Once you've peeled away the fantasy of photography as unconstructed truth, you can start to explore the fascinating story of its construction. (No Tongue Can Tell)

- For me it wasn't battlefield panorama......For me it was a studio shot. The bodies arrived in the dooryard as three men posed in suits, with sleeves folded and pinned at the elbows: two standing, one seated, all stiff. In the photo their faces are regal and stoic, two gazing into unknown middle distances, while the third has two black hollows - empty sockets - where his eyes should have been. His face is also regal, also stoic. He is staring at nothing; he'll never star at anything again........When I looked at that photo, something happened. A body arrived. It had no eyes. It belonged to William R. Mudge, Union soldier. Before the war, in Massachusetts, he worked as a photographer. (No Tongue Can Tell)

- She wakes up at half past five in the morning to inhabit a life in which she has the luxury of never getting out of bed at all. (Sim life)

- If Sontag wondered at the public hunger for 'the weight of witnessing without the taint of history,' then Agee measures the 'weight of witnessing ' in every way possible. (Make It Scream, Make It Burn)

- Book 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men' and its predecessor never-published article 'Cotton Tenants'

- Months later, when he told me he was getting married, to a woman I hadn't yet met, I thought of the woman in the photograph and realized that his loneliness had lied to me. It wasn't his but mine, my own loneliness reflected in the cage of his new life, a space in which I felt I had no place. When I cried at his wedding, I cried for the betrayal of that dim apartment - how I'd imagined him lonely, when in fact he was happy, and how my sympathy had made a fool of me in the end. (Rehearsals)

- Come back remembering, so you can tell us where you've been........We live, until we don't. We return, unless we can't. (We Tell Ourselves the Stories)

- There you were, an arrival, a cry, the beginning of another world. (The Quickening)

- Joe was right when he said whales is just a whale. So was Leonora when she said the whale is everything......if we let the whale cleave in two, into his actual form and the apparition of what we needed him to become, then we let these twins swim apart. We free each figure from the other's shadow. We watch them cut two paths across the sea. (52 Blue)

Jamison is a wonderful writer. There is no doubt about that. In this essay collection, we get some more of her wonderfully descriptive and reflective writing. The book gained strength as it went; while I wasn't pulled in by the initial essays, by the end I was fully along for the ride. I feel the most invested when Jamison is writing about her personal experiences, which is likely why I found the later essays to be stronger. There is something about the way she writes her personal strengths and failings that makes me want to know more. If only the first essays had had the same sort of personal investment - when I began reading, I honestly wondered why she had chosen those topics, why I should care, and how they were connected or relevant. I'd still recommend this book, because by the time we get to the third or fourth essay I felt like I had found her again.

Leslie Jamison is an amazing writer and anything she has ever written is well worth reading for the art of her writing. I like the last part of the book best as I was interested in her relationship with her now husband and daughter. I do think there is a middle road between fixed and flexible relationships that is hardwired into the least common of the personality types and makes the need for novelty mandatory which isn’t a bad thing. I’ll be interested in what Leslie has to say down the parenting road. I went back to read this because the choices for good books
are fewer and glad I did, so good to find reading that engages attention and is thought provoking.

I can't stop underlining passages from Jamison's intimate and intelligent essays. As always, I love the way each of her pieces is at once about subject and writer, and the urgent desire to close the space between the two through empathy and curiosity.

Leslie Jamison has become one of my new favorite essay authors. I recently read the essay collection “The Empathy Exams,” and “The Recovering,” a book length examination of addiction and recovery. Both books are ones I’ve highly recommended. The essays in “Make It Scream, Make it Burn” are wide-ranging in subject matter - from a blue whale who never found a mate and came to represent loneliness to many people, reincarnation, the historical role of stepmothers, and her personal relationships and pregnancy. Some of the most thought-provoking essays were those that were journalistic and investigative in nature, and examined what the proper role of a journalist is when exploring people’s lives and beliefs. Jamison is ever conscious of what is ethical and right in those situations and never comes off as exploitative, condescending, or voyeuristic. Her immense curiosity, eloquent writing, deep insight, and rigorous intellect make this another winner from Jamison.

My review was posted on Goodreads 10/15/19.

Make It Scream, Make It Burn is a collection of essays by Leslie Jamison, a journalist with The Atlantic, one of America’s oldest and most respected magazines. She arranged her essays from the outside in, so to speak. The first section of essays is most outside her realm of experience, the final section is autobiographical. Jamison is a chronicler of the odd and misfit, it many ways. I remember the first article by her I ever read, about people with an illness doctors do not believe exists. In that article and in these essays, she displays her extraordinary ability to connect with people, to create an empathetic link to them while recounting their story later.

Full disclosure, Jamison interviewed me for her piece on Second Life, included in this book. She did not use my interview but did include people I suggested as good people to interview for greater understanding of Second Life. My friends were shocked at how thorough the fact-checkers were, but were also very unhappy to see Second Life portrayed as an escape. It seemed as her own life was so happy, she could not see a value in a second. They felt misunderstood. Jamison addresses this, too, in her essay on a photographer who felt anger when Jamison wrote about her project.

Make It Scream, Make It Burn is a good collection of essays. Jamison is an essayist exploring life and culture. Journalists often write their stories as though they are no part of the story, as though the observer effect did not exist. But, physicists have shown how even quantum phenomena are changed by passive observation. Jamison, by writing herself into her essays drops the pretense that her words are not mediated by her own perceptions.

Take that Second Life story, it is affected by who she chose to interview and the questions she asks. She could have talked to designers who produced first and Second Life fashions, using SL to expand her ideas of what is possible in fashion, unhampered by gravity, for example. She could have talked to the people at the Sioux sim where tribal history is taught or church services or a transgender support group. Her own idea of SL, a refuge, influenced who she featured and the questions she asked…and by putting herself in the story, she does not pretend omniscience. This makes her essays more compelling.

I received an e-galley of Make It Scream, Make It Burn from the publisher through NetGalley

Make It Scream, Make It Burn at Little, Brown and Company
Leslie Jamison author site

I received an egalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review; opinions are my own.

Leslie Jamison is such a skilled essayist, it's kind of mind-blowing. She weaves together lyrical imagery, well-researched facts, personal narrative and broad context so well in pretty much everything she writes. This collection is organized in a really interesting way, and while the subjects of these essays range from the quirky (the whale Blue 52, the Museum Of Broken Relationships) to the deeply personal (Jamison’s journey into step-parenthood and then biological motherhood) to the highly intellectual (essays on photography and a sprawling analysis of James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men), there are clear themes and style that hold them all together. The ideas of self-consciousness, moral virtue, and how to be a ‘good’ citizen or person in the world/how we fail at this all the time can be found in every essay, as well as what it means to love and be loved, to experience loss, to be curious- really to be human. While I found the Agee essay in particular (the title essay) to be kind of long and a bit boring, it still shines on a craft level, and almost every other essay was a hit for me. I definitely recommend this book!

I feel like Jamison has matured in how she views relationships and other people. These essays seem more interested in other people's motivations and quirks than her own, and she comes across as curious and empathetic. In 2007, I wrote an article for an obscure music librarian journal about Second Life and she interviewed one of the same avatars for the essay on Second Life in this collection. "52 Blue" is a favorite in this collection, and I really liked "The Real Smoke" which is about Vegas culture and our unrealistic expectations of relationships.