Now, five-and-a-half years later, Juneau is a remarkably polite and patient kindergartner with his first pair of lace-up shoes, and Biss’s due diligence research on vaccinations has expanded into the book-length essay On Immunity.
Biss is the sort of writer who likes to think her way toward her conclusions. Research, for her, begins with finding the right questions to ask, instead of looking for information to support a position she’s already chosen.
“The subject was incredibly expansive,” she says now. It’s the week before school starts, and she and Juneau are spending an afternoon back at Rogers Beach; although they and Bresland recently moved to Evanston, into quarters that are both larger and closer to Northwestern, where Biss teaches nonfiction writing, they have a powerful nostalgia for Rogers Park. “It became an obsession.”