Lydia Paar (MFA ’19) joined the American workforce at 14, holding nearly 30 different jobs from 25 homes across eight states into adulthood. These essays explore her attempts to evade or transform the lower-middle-class American experience across varied cityscapes, towns, and in-between places; through the hip streets of Portland and desolate deserts, in army basic training and on cross-country bus trips, inside eerie St. Louis funeral homes and more, Paar explores how we work, how we alternately imprison and free ourselves with our efforts, and how what we try to transform so often ultimately transforms us.
Paar is an essayist and fiction writer who earned an MFA from Washington University and an MA from Northern Arizona University. She lives in Tucson and teaches writing at the University of Arizona. Poets & Writer’s Magazine is featuring her new book as one of five books in their annual New Nonfiction roundup of 2024 (the September/October issue).