Occasional Desire Essays
Occasional Desire Essays by David Lazar, published by U of Nebraska Press in September 2013, is a collection of essays that delves into various themes, including random violence, the significance of vanished phone booths, and the connections between notable figures like Kobe Bryant and Elizabeth Taylor. In this 218-page work, Lazar employs a self-aware and ironic tone to explore the complexities of human desire and survival, while also reflecting on the craft of essay writing itself.
Readers will find that Lazar’s essays provide a thoughtful examination of memory and its intricacies, highlighting how personal narratives are shaped by our perceptions of the past. The collection invites contemplation on the nature of desire and imagination, offering insights into how these elements influence our understanding of the world. Through his unique perspective, Lazar encourages readers to consider the multifaceted relationship between memory and the literary form, making this edition a rich exploration of both personal and universal themes.
Official synopsis Publisher
In his new collection of essays, Occasional Desire, David Lazar meditates on random violence and vanished phone booths, on the excessive relationship to jewelry that links Kobe Bryant and Elizabeth Taylor, on Hitchcock, Francis Bacon, and M. F. K. Fisher. He explores, in his concentrically self-aware, amused, and ironic voice, what it means to be occasionally aware that we are surviving by our wits, and that our desires, ulterior or obvious, are what keep us alive. Lazar also turns his attention on the essay itself, affording us a three-dimensional look at the craft and the art of reading and writing a literary form that maps the world as it charts the peregrinations of the mind.
Lazar is especially interested in the trappings of memory, the trapdoors of memory, the way we gild or codify, select, soften, and self-delude ourselves based on our understanding of the past. His own process of selection and reflection reminds us of how far this literary form can take us, bound only by the limits of desire and imagination.
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