Neal Pollack is known for his book, Alternadad, and his fantastic new yoga detective serial, Downward-Facing Death. He’s published a novel about Jewish basketball players in the 1930s, Jewball, and a rock and roll novel called Never Mind the Pollacks.
He’s a talented writer on eclectic topics, and I think Lisa and I would have published an essay he wrote on any topic, but lucky for us he had a story about what happened when he wrote an essay about his son’s taste in cheese. It seems like an innocent enough topic, really, but it provoked an amazing flood of commentary, not all of it particularly polite or friendly. Why do people care so much about what other people eat? Lisa and I don’t have the answer, and Neal Pollack, years after the name-calling flame war provoked by his essay, doesn’t have the answer, but reading his thoughts on it now sure makes me laugh.