Notes from No Man's Land

‘Eula Biss’s elegantly structured essays in Notes from No Man’s Land are delivered with a deceptively quiet insistence that nevertheless leaves the reader shaken. […] in a detached, poetic narrative voice that is as mesmerising as it is sure-footed, Biss deftly turns to a consideration of what happened next. […] So it is with the rest of this wondrous book. […] She begins in one place and confidently leads somewhere unexpected. She picks and worries at the idea of race in America – incarceration, education, social welfare. […] Lyrical she may be, but she is also exhilaratingly bold. Notes From No Man’s Land offers an uncompromising interrogation of a troubled land by a writer who refuses what could be her birthright as a white woman […] Biss is rare in that she does not treat her own race as the default (the norm from which ‘people of colour’ are somehow deviating). The fact that this in itself is remarkable proves the value of her endeavour.’
— Ellah Allfrey, The Spectator

‘I can’t think of an American writer at work today who matches Eula Biss’s combination of lyrical precision, exhaustive research, timely provocation, and fiercely examined conscience.’
— Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts

‘Two of the qualities that make Eula Biss’s essays in Notes from No Man’s Land compelling and beautiful are precision and independence – independence from orthodoxies of the right and left and the conventions of literary essays and their displays of sensibility and sensitivity. And whatever topic she takes up she dissects and analyzes with startling insight that comes from deep reading and original thinking. She's important to this moment, important to the opening up of what essays can be, important for setting a standard of integrity and insight, and she's also a joy to read.’
— Rebecca Solnit, author of Hope in the Dark