On May 19, writer and social critic Anna Quindlen—who already has a Pulitzer Prize, bestselling books, and a high stack of honorary degrees—will add one from Washington University and give its Commencement address. She’s embraced that art form, transforming clichés (be yourself, don’t worry what other people think) into profound, lucid advice that’s frank about society’s problems and wise about human nature. Here’s Quindlen urging Mt. Holyoke grads to stop trying to be perfect:
“At one level it’s too hard, and at another level, it’s too cheap and easy. Because it really requires you mainly to read the zeitgeist of wherever and whenever you happen to be, and to assume the masks necessary to be the best of whatever the zeitgeist dictates or requires. Those requirements shapeshift, sure, but when you’re clever you can read them and do the imitation required. But nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great ever came out of imitations. The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
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You’re famous for observing, clear-eyed, the world around you. What are the deepest values you hold—and use to measure society?
Henry James said, “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” That about covers it.
Please explain the Villanova University chronology, back in 2000. They invited you to speak, rescinded, someone circulated your speech, they invited you again? I’m having trouble reconstructing it!
They asked me to give the commencement address and get an honorary degree, which was incredibly meaningful since I would have been the third generation Quindlen to receive one from Villanova. Some weeks beforehand, my father let me know that trouble was brewing: donors who were furious, a demonstration planned by anti-choice adherents, and pushback from the archdiocese. If I had been invited to speak on campus, I would have gone ahead. But I didn’t want anyone’s commencement to be marred by protesters on my account. So I bowed out. One graduate emailed me through my agent and asked if I knew what I would have said. I had written my speech, sent it to her, and next thing I knew it was all over the internet. We decided to publish it as A Short Guide to a Happy Life. And when Catholic institutions ask me to speak, I now demur. They labor under the misconception that they have the same right to open dialogue as other institutions, and sometimes they do. Until the archbishop calls.
What’s the most honest, brave thing you’ve ever written?
I never think of what I do as brave, but the column that seemed to hit some essential truth that ought never be spoken was one I wrote for Newsweek about Andrea Yates, the mother in Texas who drowned her children, and about how incredibly difficult it is to be a mother. In the natural order of things we were supposed to demonize her. That column did something different that made lots of people uncomfortable, and lots of women whisper, thank you.
What has surprised you about yourself?
There are two things. One is that I’m amazed that I turned into as good a mother as I think I’ve been, given how self-centered I was before my children were born. The other is that I just don’t give a damn anymore about what anyone thinks of me. Society’s judgement is so flawed that the idea that I ever let it affect me in any way is completely laughable. I’m fine. I’m good.
Just what it is, at the root, that scares people about a woman with a strong mind?
Oh, come on! You had at your disposal an entire class of people to whom, without investigation or analysis, you could feel superior. What a gift! No matter what sort of a dolt you were, you could count on the fact that women were dumber, less able, incapable of so very much. Overturning that convenient status quo was threatening to half of society, which is why it continues. When men criticized my column, they would frequently say I was “so opinionated.” I was paid to air opinions, but being “opinionated”—well, who did I think I was? Male? Nope. I’m a strong woman, which is almost redundant, because so many women I know are strong. And when we don’t take advantage of that, we impoverish our society. People who diminish women are diminishing the world while they air their own insecurities.
Do you think there’s an anti-intellectual streak in U.S. culture?
It’s always been the case. It’s always been clear to me in attitudes toward reading. We pay lip service to literacy, then call readers bookworms. I sit next to CEOs at dinner and they say, in a self-congratulatory way, that they’re too busy to read. We now have a President who has talked often about how he doesn’t read, which seems quite apparent in much of what he says. Americans like to think of themselves as people of action. They also confuse “created equal” with “nobody smarter than anyone else.” I actually take a lot of pleasure in people who are clearly smarter than I am because of the opportunity to continue my education. I only wish there were more of them in government and industry.
How do you stay sane and balanced in today’s crazy world, what with divisive politics, digital distraction, etc.?
I read. Reading covers a multitude of evils.
You’ve been said to have your “finger firmly planted on the pulse of [your] generation.” How do you stay so closely attuned?
The obvious answer is to listen and to observe. I’m lucky enough to live in New York City, where eavesdropping is not only possible, it’s inevitable. Much of my technique as a reporter was simply listening to people, on the subway, in the market, screaming at one another on the street. Deep down inside I’m still a reporter, always will be, and I spend a lot of time observing people. One of my close friends is a quite well-known actress, and she says that’s been the biggest downside to fame, that she used to enhance her understanding of human nature by observing, and the response other people have to her now makes that impossible. Writers are the most anonymous of celebrities, if they are celebrities at all. I have from time to time actually sat on a plane or in a subway car next to someone reading one of my books. They never give me a second look.
Your take on print journalism’s role and condition and future?
It’s possible to be better informed in America than ever before. It’s just that readers have to do some of the work. A single daily or news broadcast just won’t cut it; you have to be your own aggregator. BBC, New York Times, Post-Dispatch, Salon, Slate. The great news organizations are currently doing some of their best work ever as a response to being demonized by this new administration. Reporters always step up when the powerful try to smack them down: Halberstam in Vietnam, Woodward and Bernstein. That’s what’s happening right now. I’m proud of my business, and in one form or another it will not only survive but thrive. It’s the linchpin of democracy.
The biggest challenge (and/or relief) in shifting from nonfiction to fiction?
You can get over a fair amount of inner turmoil by opening your notebook and using what’s inside. With fiction, there’s no notebook. But am I complaining? Certainly not. I feel incredibly lucky to have had this opportunity to work in so many different forms.
What’s your favorite of your own books?
Your favorite book better be the one you’re working on now, or you’re in trouble. So my favorite at the moment is a novel about contemporary New York and about class, money and marriage entitled Alternate Side. Coming soon, or as soon as I can finish my revisions and Random House can come up with a jacket.
You lost your mother when you were only 19, and later wrote a semi-autobiographical book, One True Thing, in which a mother dies. (Meryl Streep was nominated for an Academy Award in the movie adaptation.) What are your wishes for your own eventual death—if you could choose how you die, how your life is celebrated, etc.
Several years ago I shuffled through shelves and boxes and came up with a complete set of first editions of each of my books for each of my kids. When I was done I realized I was basically constructing a mausoleum: This is who your mother was, this is what she thought and cared about. So I’m done.
