Working at Blockbuster, going AWOL from the Army at 19, walking away from Catholicism and other life experiences make up the debut essay collection by Arizona author Lydia Paar. 

“The Exit is the Entrance: Essays on Escape” will be published September 1.

“I always thought I’d be a fiction writer,” Paar said. “But in the words of a mentor, it is easier for me to remember things than make things up.”

Paar, a Oregon native, has lived in Arizona for more than 10 years. Paar’s experience as a fiction writer and essayist includes having her essay “Erasure” won the 2020 Terry Tempest Williams Creative Nonfiction Prize from the “North American Review” and was featured in the “2022 Best American Essays” collection. 

Her works have been published by publications such as Essay Daily, The Missouri Review, Literary Hub and more. She teaches writing at the University of Arizona.

“I’ve kinda always wanted to be a writer because I’ve always appreciated how writing has helped me understand the world around me,” Paar said. “There’s something about having space and time to put something on paper that’s kinda nice, gives you time to think and it allows you to be precise and creative.”

Her first essay collection “The Entrance is the Exit: Essays on Escape” is being published by the University of Georgia Press and it is an exploration of Paar’s personal life experiences weaved into reflections about the workforce, class and other topics.

“As you get older and you begin to have personal experiences,” Paar said. “What you thought was unique is actually not unique. Some people talk about things — I gravitated to the written word.”

Paar said growing up, she “was always looking for an escape from being lower-class.” She said she came from a family that dealt with cases of alcoholism and that there was a time she lived in her grandmother’s attic following the divorce of her parents.

“A lot of my life is sort of framed around how can we get rid of structures that are not serving us or make us unhappy,” Paar said. “How to get free.”

One of her life stories that takes part of her essay collection is about Paar going AWOL from the Army at 19. Writing the essay provided a therapeutic effect for her.

“I broke four bones: two ribs, my pelvis and my femur,” Paar said. “And they wouldn’t let me go, so I decided to go anyway. Basic training as I experienced it was pretty brutal. And the philosophy of dehumanizing our opponents, our enemies, in this training was abhorrent to me.”

Paar had joined the military because she wanted to go to college and the military provided the financial assistance she needed to pursue her education.

Aside her time in the armed forces, Paar worked in “nearly 30 jobs” since adolescence.

“There’s an essay about being a teenager and working at Blockbuster,” Paar said. “And what’s that like to kind of be in a job with people that have been working those kinds of jobs for their whole lives and what happens to the, sort of, class level.”

“There is another essay that I am particularly nervous about and it’s about shunning my Catholicism, the background I was raised in. I think it was really helpful to me to explain to myself why I was giving up this tradition that is not useful to me anymore, it’s not serving me anymore,” Paar said. “I’m sure it’s not gonna go super well with my family but it happened.”

Paar’s writing is sharp and takes no prisoners with its honesty. Her essays are balanced with emotion, commentary and storytelling, resulting in a heartfelt collection.

“The Exit is the Entrance: Essays on Escape” is available for pre-order through the University of Georgia Press website.

“If people want to read about it being okay to let go of things,” Paar said. “Then this book will definitely give you permission to do it.”