Who was that author interviewed on NPR?
Asked by
ellbur (
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November 17th, 2013
It was about half a year or so ago.
Here are all the details I can remember:
– She was sarcastic and pessimistic but spirited
– She said she hated to work in all forms; she hated writing the moment it became a job (for a newspaper)
– She owns an old white-ish car that costs her thousands of dollars for new spark plugs
– She at one time in her life supported herself by selling off all her furniture
– She strongly believed that any TV show would have been better with one author
– She had recently made an audiobook of some of her earlier work, which was the impetus for the interview.
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14 Answers
A few more details might be helpful…
– What kind of accent or dialect did the writer have, that might indicate where she was from?
– What program was the interview recorded for? (E.g. Fresh Air, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, etc.) Do you recall which NPR Host conducted the interview?
– What genre of books does she write?
My first thought was someone like Sarah Vowell… but I can’t find any of your details matching her stories.
I can’t think how one would go about searching for this. It’s a toughie. When you say “earlier work”, do you mean essays, or maybe short stories?
Ah, I will try to give some more information.
It wasn’t Sarah Vowell; I know her. I unfortunately do not know what show it was, and I don’t know the NPR hosts well enough to recognize them by voice.
Her accent sounded New York. She currently resides in New York, in an apartment which she owns.
I do not know the genre of her writing. I think one of the books might have involved advice to parents, despite her not having any children of her own. Her advice seemed to be along the lines of telling parents how to correct all the things that kids do that annoy her, but I may be misremembering.
She expressed a deep wish to have inherited enough money to lie on the couch all day and read instead of work.
Yes, this sure is a hard one to search for! I have tried! I don’t think you could possibly find it by searching; I think you’d have to have heard it also, which is why I came here hoping to catch someone who had.
This is just a wild guess but could it be Nora or Delia Ephron?
@janbb Can’t have been Nora Ephron. :(
@glacial know she’s dead but not how long ago which is why I suggested Delia.
@janbb Yeah, it was over a year ago. I’m having a hard time imagining Delia driving around in an old car, though. But they occurred to me, too, especially with the film connection.
A few more details I remembered, but again, unless you happened to hear the actual interview, I don’t think you’ll be able to figure it out.
- She hasn’t written anything in many years. She gives talks for money.
– “I have many friends who have private jets, and they offer me rides, because I am good company” (not word for word)
– “I have friends who are heiresses, and they tell me they don’t know what to do with themselves. I say honey, you’re an heiress. Lie on the couch and read.”
– “The car isn’t white, it’s pearl, but when I go to pick it up at the garage, I have to tell the straight male mechanic it’s white”
– “When I was making money, I bought a lot of furniture. It’s something I love. And I have very good taste in furniture, so when I didn’t have money, all my furniture had increased in value. So I supported myself that way as my furniture left my apartment.”
– “I have been asked to ‘punch up’ a script. I won’t do it. Is there anyone who doesn’t believe that every show on television would be better if it had one author? But you see the credits on these shows and they list tens of authors.”
– “Now, what I’ve just read to you, wasn’t that good. But the way I read it is what makes it good.”
That’s an amazing amount of exact or paraphrased quotation to recall. But you can’t tell us the speaker’s approximate age, the name of any TV show she mentioned and how old it was, the name of anyone she’s ever worked with, and whether the interviewer was male or female?
Are you certain the program originated with NPR and not your local public radio station?—it was definitely a nationally distributed interview program? Maybe it would help anyway to know what station you were listening to.
From the general acerbic tone, I’m going to take a stab at Fran Lebowitz?
She’s definitely NY as her speech patterns attest. I’ve never heard Fran talking about a white car, but all the rest of it sounds like her. So, that’s my official guess.
Buttonstc, you are my hero; it was indeed Fran Lebowitz. I haven’t found the actual interview but the voice is unmistakable. Thank you!
If the interview was on Fresh Air Nora Ephron is a possibility since they do replay interviews, especially at a person’s passing or on the anniversary of their death.
My first thought was Merrill Markoe.
@LilCosmo
I can see where you get Merrill as a possibility since she and Fran are both geniuses and have that NY sensibility. But Fran is a bit more “kvetchy” than Merrill, don’t you think?
Interesting side note regarding Merrill Markoe: way way back in the day (when he was still with NBC), she was a producer on the Letterman show as well as living with him and their several dogs. She was the brainchild who first came up with the idea for the recurring segments of “Stupid Pet Tricks” which is one of the staples of the show, even now.
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