Day 11: "If Not Now, Later"

Yiyun Li (The New Yorker, October 30, 2023)

In this twenty-two-day series, we are counting down the days to publication (October 22, 2024) with a brief passage from each of the twenty-two essays included in The Best American Essays 2024. These excerpts were curated by Best American Essays Editorial Assistant Cheyenne Paterson and are presented in the order of the volume’s table of contents.

“There is, alas, not a normal course of life, against which deviations can be measured and, hopefully, corrected. Only changed courses, altered lives. One can look longingly at the alternatives.”

—Yiyun Li, “If Not Now, Later,” The New Yorker, October 30, 2023.