A moving and wide-ranging collection of essays by the author of
Letter to a Future Lover
The idea of connection permeates I Will Take the Answer, Ander
Monson's fourth book of utterly original and intelligent essays. How is
our present connected to our past and future? How do neural connections
form memories, and why do we recall them when we do? And how do we
connect with one another in meaningful ways across time and space?
In the opening essay, which extends across the book in brief subsequent
pieces, a trip through a storm sewer in Tucson inspires Monson to trace
the city's relationship to Jared Lee Loughner, the gunman who shot
Gabrielle Giffords and killed six bystanders, along with how violence is
produced and how we grieve and honor the dead. With the formally
inventive "I in River," he ruminates on water in a waterless city and
the structures we use to attempt to contain and control it. Monson also
visits the exuberantly nerdy kingdom of a Renaissance Faire, and
elaborates on the enduring appeal of sad songs through the lens of March
Sadness, an online competition that he cofounded, an engaging riff on
the NCAA basketball tournament brackets in which sad songs replace
teams.
As personal and idiosyncratic as the best mixtape, I Will Take the
Answer showcases Monson's deep thinking and broad-ranging interests,
his sly wit, his soft spot for heavy metal, and his ability to tunnel
deeply into the odd and revealing, sometimes subterranean, worlds of
American life.
