Nancy Lemann

Aug 26, 2024 | memoirland.substack.com | Jonathan Lethem |Annie Ernaux |Nancy Lemann

Welcome to Memoir Land—a newsletter edited by Sari Botton, now featuring four verticals:Memoir Monday, a weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus,  Granta, Guernica, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, and Electric Literature. Below is this week’s curation. First Person Singular, featuring original personal essays. Recently I published “Becoming Becks” by .

Jun 18, 2024 | theparisreview.org | Nancy Lemann

I know a certain amount about sports, mainly baseball. Last night the Rangers won the pennant, for example, and I know what the pennant is. The thing my husband finds truly poetic is sports. He’s always trying to talk to me about it and explain. “Watch this play,” he keeps saying, and then explaining it. Without his explanations I don’t think I would appreciate the poetry in sports, though the concept is simple: it’s an arena for heroes and heroics.

Feb 23, 2024 | theparisreview.org | Nancy Lemann

By Nancy Lemann February 23, 2024 1. Once I had to go to Disney World with my small children. On the way to the airport our taxi driver exhibited signs of Obsessive Disney Disorder—when he found out where we were going he started obsessively describing and listing and explaining everything that had to do with Disney World, even though he was a grown man.

May 10, 2023 | theparisreview.org | Nancy Lemann

By Nancy Lemann May 10, 2023 On Music Don Giovanni keeps playing in my head, as if of its own accord. I wonder if I could be having musical hallucinations. I read an article about a woman who had musical hallucinations. She heard someone playing a piano outside the front door of her house. She went outside to look but nothing was there. The music played on, always vaguely nearby.

May 4, 2023 | harpers.org | Nancy Lemann

9/5/22Emirates flight to Dubai; passengers predominantly Indian and Arab. Watched some Middle Eastern TV shows just to see what they were like. They were moronic melodramas. Bar and restaurant on plane. Prayer times listed on TV screens in the bar—conflicting message? (Aren’t Muslims not supposed to drink?) White-haired Indian guy sitting behind me who never stopped talking once throughout entire flight (thirteen hours).