A review by jcstokes95
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

 
A difficult read throughout, there wasn’t a single essay that didn’t leave me chewing on it after. I think all essay collections are hoping to be called “thought-provoking” and this one earns that description in spades. While I found myself resistant to some of Elliot’s arguments and do believe there are a few structural issues with how she builds her essays, I am still turning over everything I’ve learned in these pieces. 

Elliot is at her best when melding her own stories throughout an essay; she invites us into her own hardest moments to see how the systemic affected her family before zooming out. A particular standout to me was “On Forbidden Rooms and Intentional Forgetting” which investigates how we demand survivors of violence perform their pain for us to take them seriously. This is perfectly crafted, taking her own story (or the pieces she feels she can share) before weaving in examples from history and current events to put the reader in an uncomfortable position…one where they must consider how much they dig into others darkest moments before we give them compassion. I think the brilliance of this piece speaks to how well these essays can work when they are tightly wound. 

I struggled with some of the longer pieces; I often found myself disagreeing with Elliot…or, if not disagreeing, questioning how she had gotten to her conclusion. A lot of the time it feels like she speak from what she “feels” to be true, rather than backing her thought process up. She rarely gives space to opinions that do not match her own, which is frustrating, because as the reader I am asking questions that she doesn’t beat back on. I am okay finding myself not agreeing with an author, but am more frustrated to not see her seriously outline critique. For example, in the piece responding to Sontag (which was my least favorite) she states that “maybe there is no ethical way to ethically photograph pain”. She gives little time to discussing how impartial photojournalism has turned the world toward empathy at important moments. I would venture she may disagree with that idea, but I’d at least like her to contend with it in this piece. This sort of blind eye gets turned in a few of her essays; I would be curious to see if her approach changes in a second book. 

All in all, I recommend this collection if you like to feel challenged and don’t mind feeling like you want to argue out the small stuff with the author. I would say that a good essay collection should make you question the author, even if you are standing on the same side of the fence with them. 

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