What’s unique about Elizabeth McCracken’s “Toward a Unified Theory of the Donut” is that, while it’s a personal essay, the most we learn about the author herself is through the singular lens of donut. Unlike the heavily probing essays we’ve read (and written) in the past several weeks, this one explores the place of donuts in her life as a hole.
One of the main characteristics of the author we learn of is her love of donuts. The other we learn is the place of literature in her life, with her discussion of the Shakespeare Players and working in a variety of libraries. It’s also evident through her discussions of classic literature, describing works by both Washington Irving and Edith Wharton in the process of describing donuts to us as an audience, though maybe I should have intuited it more quickly since I was quite literally reading something she had published.
The last ascertation she makes is that most art, like donuts, is defined by an absence. This piece is defined by an absence of the narrative and unique emotional depth found in most personal essays, but much like a donut, it provides satisfaction despite its emptiness.