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November 2017 Vol. 55 No. 3

Crafting Presence is one of the best recent books on how professors, students, and essayists should read, critique, and write the essay, a genre finding its way back into favor as a form of writing and also as a form of art. Wallack (Columbia Univ.) analyzes essays from The Best American Essays anthologies as representations of nonpersonal genre pieces that successfully connect presence, idea, and evidence—the fundamental components associated with proper essay construction—to create masterpieces of the form. What makes Wallack's book so successful is her ability to speak to all audiences with an investment in how to gain a true understanding of this misunderstood genre. Wallack covertly asks a question: why do beginning-level writing programs not implement a more comprehensive understanding of writing so students are not forced to author robotic research papers, written for the sole purpose of earning a good grade? Her point is that programs should provide students with models that best represent this most important genre. This book is a must read for anyone attempting to change the current dynamic, which, unfortunately, is not very dynamic at all.

--D. C. MacLeod, SUNY Cobleskill

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.