EVEN IF YOU DONâT KNOW Aaron Gilbreathâs name, youâve probably read his work. The Portland authorâs essays have ended up everywhere from Harperâs and Slate to The Believer and the New York Times. But he hasnât published a book showing the range of his interests and abilities until now.
Everything We Donât Know, which comes out this week on Chicago-based indie press Curbside Splendor, compiles nearly 20 of Gilbreathâs essays from the past decade. While theyâre essays first and foremostâthey go where they please without concern for an overarching narrativeâa casual memoir builds behind the individual pieces in a mostly chronological fashion. The collection begins with Gilbreath just out of high school in Phoenix and takes us through his 2000 move to Portland, his failed foray into the New York City publishing world during the mid-â00s, his post-fail move back into his parentsâ house, and his return to Portland.
Throughout the years, Gilbreath presents himself as an odd variety of lost boyâlost even among other lost boys. Heâs resistant to cookie-cutter ideas of settling down, but his idea of fun and games is a little different than most. He writes the essays from the vantage point of someone whoâs already quit most of his vices, isnât much for parties, and ends up flying solo on most of his adventures. More than anything, he wants to be a researcherâwhether in the woods, the library, or ignored corners of a cityâwriting essays and books about all the things heâs curious about. Which, it turns out, encompass a wide range.
The subjects he takes on in Everything We Donât Know include (but arenât limited to): kitsch architecture, mental health, Star Wars collectibles, late 19th-century Jewish immigration to New York City, drug addiction, surf and skate movies of the 1980s, and the ocean-bound debris of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
Like the best essayists, Gilbreath seeks out ambiguities in his subjects, often embracing their murky uncertainties. Even when itâs uncomfortable, he lingers in the unknown. âThe human mind likes what talk shows call 'closure,ââ he writes in the bookâs stunning title essay. âIt tries to make full circles. It prefers completed puzzles to pieces. We struggle to live with enduring mystery.â
Though he wants the satisfaction of that brief mental closure, he also wants a world thatâs in some ways forever mysterious, and itâs this push and pull between the known and unknown that ultimately drives the essay collection.
Everything We Donât Know is expansive, obsessive, and consistently entertaining. Gilbreathâs inquisitiveness is infectious, and his misadventures are filled with a self-doubt thatâs charming and all too relatable. âI wondered why I had ever questioned my enthusiasm,â he writes, âall the while knowing that I would question myself again the next time.â