Photo: Bryan Schutmaat for New York Magazine
On a muggy July afternoon in Iowa City, I went grocery shopping with the writer Garth Greenwell. We hit up the town’s 1971-founded co-op armed with a short list from his partner, the poet Luis Muñoz. I was going over for dinner the next day, and ingredients needed to be acquired.
Greenwell is one of the more respected practitioners of American fiction working today. His first novel, What Belongs to You, the story of a love affair between a young Bulgarian hustler and an expat teacher from Kentucky, was nominated for the 2016 National…