Quindlen, Anna

▪ 1995

      In September 1994 New York Times syndicated columnist Anna Quindlen—stating that when she got comfortable in a job it was time to move on to the next challenge—announced that at the end of the year she would be leaving the paper to pursue a full-time career as a novelist. She had already had two novels published. Her first—Object Lessons, a coming-of-age story—appeared in 1991 and became a best-seller. The experience of temporarily dropping out of college to care for her mother as she was dying of cancer formed the basis of her second novel, One True Thing (1994). In addition, two collections of her columns and a children's book were published.

      One of the most successful columnists in the U.S., Quindlen was valued for seeming to speak directly to each of her readers about the issues that concerned them, and she brought an insightful, personal view to political, especially gender, issues. Although she had been mentioned as a possible future Times executive editor, she felt that continuing her work at the paper would not leave time for the commitment she wanted to make to her fiction writing and to her family.

      Quindlen was born July 8, 1953, in Philadelphia. She began her newspaper career as a part-time reporter for the New York Post when she was still a student at Barnard College, New York City, and her first story was published in Seventeen magazine when she was a junior. She received a B.A. degree in 1974 and went to work at the paper full-time. In 1977 she moved to the New York Times to be a general assignment and city hall reporter, and from 1981 to 1983, when she became deputy metropolitan editor, she wrote the biweekly column "About New York." In 1985 Quindlen left the Times to stay home with her two young sons and work on a novel, but she returned in late 1986 to write the "Life in the 30's" column. Within two years it was being published in some 60 newspapers. The birth of her daughter in late 1988 led her to quit again, but a year later she was lured back to the Times, this time with an offer to write a column on the op-ed page. "Public & Private" began early in 1990, and her popularity continued to grow. In 1992 Quindlen won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, only the third woman to win the prize in that category.

      In her final column, on December 14, Quindlen paid tribute to the "everyday angels" who, through their efforts to give help selflessly where it is needed, make it possible to believe in the essential goodness of people. "I leave you with good tidings of great joy," she wrote. "Those who shun the prevailing winds of cynicism and anomie can truly fly." (BARBARA WHITNEY)

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