The Russian writer Andrei Vosnesensky spoke of what he called a nostalgia for the present. For a man who had escaped repression, there was nothing to yearn for, no past to be burnished by memory. Instead, he projected himself forward, already imagining looking back on himself reborn. The idea of Eden offers a powerful metaphor of innocent beginnings, recapitulating, as it does, the processes of human development from child to adult, knowledge and sin becoming coterminous. Yet there are those born with the taste of the apple already in their infant mouths or at least those whose memories will not permit the notion of a paradise lost.

This book began with a desire to celebrate the work of W. G. Sebald, a friend and colleague. Max, as he was known to his friends, began writing late.