Reading List
Authors Like
A twenty-year-old English student moves in as caretaker to Andrew Lytle, the last of the Southern Agrarians, then in his nineties, and stays until the old man dies. Sullivan buries him, and watches the cedar coffin grow invisible within seconds as the dirt goes in. That is “Mr. Lytle”, one of fourteen pieces in Pulphead (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), which also contains a Christian rock festival, Axl Rose, an unexplained noise recorded in the deep ocean, a nineteenth-century Kentucky polymath who invented a prehistory of America, and an afternoon smoking with a former member of Bob Marley's band in Kingston. The New York Times Book Review called it the most important collection of magazine writing since David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, which is the comparison that has followed him ever since. His first book, Blood Horses (2004), is part elegy for his father, a sportswriter, and part history of the thoroughbred. He is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, a contributing editor at Harper's and southern editor of The Paris Review, and lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. Two books in twenty years, and no third announced. The ten below are the essayists to read while waiting.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Essays and magazine writing · American South · Two books · Updated September 2026
Quick answer
If you love John Jeremiah Sullivan, the closest match is David Foster Wallace, for the obvious reason: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is the book Pulphead is measured against, and the first-person reporting voice is the same instrument. Joan Didion and Gay Talese are the ancestors. Hilton Als, Zadie Smith and Leslie Jamison are the essayists working at that level now, and Jia Tolentino the sharpest of the generation after. For the music obsession, read Greil Marcus — and then Elijah Wald, who thinks the whole romance is invented.
10 authors like John Jeremiah Sullivan
Where to start if you loved John Jeremiah Sullivan
If you want the closest match, read David Foster Wallace.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. A cruise ship, a state fair, and a reporter who cannot stop noticing himself.
If you want the ancestor, read Joan Didion.
The White Album. The same first person, thirty degrees colder.
If you want the profile that started it, read Gay Talese.
“Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”. A portrait of a man who would not speak to him.
If you want it now, read Jia Tolentino or Hilton Als.
Trick Mirror or White Girls. The same instrument, later and sharper.
If you want the argument against it, read Elijah Wald.
Escaping the Delta. The lost bluesman, and who actually invented him.
If you want more essays
My shelf of collections has the rest.
Frequently asked questions about authors like John Jeremiah Sullivan
Who should I read if I love John Jeremiah Sullivan?
David Foster Wallace is the closest and the comparison reviewers have made since Pulphead appeared. Joan Didion and Gay Talese are the ancestors of the form. Working now, Hilton Als, Zadie Smith and Leslie Jamison are the essayists at his level, and Jia Tolentino the sharpest of the generation after. Ian Frazier shares the habit of driving somewhere with no news peg and coming back with a book. For the music writing, Greil Marcus is the tradition Sullivan works inside and Elijah Wald is the historian who thinks that tradition invented most of what it loves.
Which John Jeremiah Sullivan book should I start with?
Pulphead (2011), and specifically the essay “Mr. Lytle”, about the two years he spent as a young man caring for the last of the Southern Agrarian writers. If it does not work on you, nothing else will. Blood Horses (2004) is the earlier book: part elegy for his father, a sportswriter who nearly died at a racetrack, part history of the thoroughbred. It is more conventional and less startling than the essays.
Is John Jeremiah Sullivan writing a new book?
Nothing has been announced as of September 2026. He has published only two books, in 2004 and 2011, and has spent the years since on magazine work and on long-running research, including a much-discussed 2014 New York Times Magazine investigation into two women who recorded a handful of blues sides in 1930 and then vanished from the record. He remains a contributing writer at the magazine, a contributing editor at Harper's and southern editor of The Paris Review.
What is Pulphead about?
Fourteen essays, mostly written for GQ, Harper's, The Paris Review, Oxford American and Ecotone, then revised. The subjects have almost nothing in common: a Christian rock festival, Axl Rose, Michael Jackson, an unexplained sound recorded in the South Pacific, a Kentucky naturalist who invented a fantastical prehistory of America, a cast member of The Real World, the Tea Party, an afternoon in Kingston with a former member of the Wailers, and the death of the writer he lived with as a student. What holds it together is the voice.
Why is he compared to David Foster Wallace?
Because the New York Times Book Review called Pulphead the best and most important collection of magazine writing since Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and the line has followed the book ever since. The comparison holds at the level of method — a reporter who writes his own uncertainty into the assignment and refuses to be superior to his subjects — and breaks down on temperament. Sullivan is warmer, less anxious and far less interested in his own cleverness.
Is Pulphead a good introduction to the American essay?
It is one of the best, mainly because the pieces were written for very different magazines and so cover an unusual range of registers in a single book. If you want the wider tradition, read it alongside Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem for the 1960s, Talese's Sinatra profile for the reported version, and Tolentino's Trick Mirror for what the form became once everyone was online. Four books and you have the arc.
What does John Jeremiah Sullivan write about the South?
Mostly its buried and awkward history rather than its scenery. The Lytle essay is about inheriting a literary tradition with the Agrarians' politics attached; other pieces reach into early blues recording, forgotten naturalists and the way the region keeps producing its own mythology. He was born in Louisville and lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he has worked on local archival research projects, and the writing tends to be about what a place has agreed to forget.
Where can I read his magazine pieces?
Most of the best ones are collected in Pulphead, which is the efficient route. Beyond that, his work is scattered across The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, The Paris Review, GQ and Oxford American, and the longer Times Magazine pieces from the 2010s are freely available online. The blues investigation is the one to look for if the music essays in Pulphead were what caught you.
Sources
- John Jeremiah Sullivan — author page, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- John Jeremiah Sullivan — author biography, Macmillan
- Pulphead — Wikipedia
- Reviews of Pulphead, including the coffin passage — Book Marks
- Pulphead: collection of John Jeremiah Sullivan's best essays — The National
List last reviewed 9 September 2026.
More from the shelf
From the bookshelf
“Grew invisible after just a few seconds.”
— John Jeremiah Sullivan, on a coffin being buried, Pulphead.
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations