David Lazar was a Guggenheim Fellow in Nonfiction for 2015-16. His books include Who's Afraid of Helen of Troy, After Montaigne, Occasional Desire: Essays, The Body of Brooklyn, Truth in Nonfiction, Essaying the Essay, Powder Town, Michael Powell: Interviews, and Conversations with M.F.K. Fisher. Forthcoming areI’ll Be Your Mirror: Essays and Aphorisms, and Characters. Seven of his essays have been “Notable Essays of the Year” according to Best American Essays. Lazar is Professor of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. He is founding editor of the literary magazine Hotel America, and series editor, with Patrick Madden, of 21st Century Essays.
Bite that apple, open that jar at your own risk and see how your garden grows, how hopeful you remain. Paradise is, after all, blissful self-ignorance.