Eric Lax

Eric Lax is an American author who has written books on modern medicine, four books on Woody Allen including a biography, and a personal memoir Faith: Interrupted about deep religious attachment that he had in his youth and then his loss of Christian faith at a later part of his life. Lax was raised in an Episcopalian family, the son of an Episcopal priest. He graduated from The Bishop's School in La Jolla, California, in 1962 and graduated from Hobart College in 1966 with a major in English. In light of the draft for the Vietnam war, Lax applied for conscientious objector status. Following graduation, joining the Peace Corps gave him a two-year deferment from the draft. In the Peace Corps he served in Chuuk and the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. After completing his two-year placement, he worked in Washington, D.C., on the Peace Corps staff in a capacity that allowed him to travel to more than 40 countries.He left the Peace Corps in 1970 to pursue writing full-time, and his interest in comedy led to his first book, On Being Funny: Woody Allen and Comedy in 1975, which was part biography of Woody Allen and part general treatise on comedy. Lax also interviewed Groucho Marx for Life during the veteran comedian's 1972 trip to perform in Iowa.

In 1984, Lax wrote Life and Death on 10 West about the bone marrow transplantation ward at the UCLA Medical Center, which was headed at the time by his college classmate Robert Peter Gale. It was recognized by The New York Times Book Review as one of the Notable Books of the Year and received an award from the Leukemia Society of America. Lax's books include The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat, about the development of penicillin; Woody Allen: A Biography and Conversations with Woody Allen, which comprises 40 years of interviews with Allen. With Ann M. Sperber, he is the co-author of Bogart.

In addition to writing his books, Lax has written articles that have appeared in several periodical publications including The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Life, The Washington Monthly and The Washington Post. He has worked as a contributing editor of Esquire magazine.He is a past president of PEN Center USA, is currently a Vice President of PEN International and a member of the board of The Los Angeles Review of Books.