GRAND Magazine - July/August 2019 - 20

cover story
than it might have been because she and I are friends, and I
never ever want her to look like that-the hair gone, the skin
ashen, the eyes sunken-in real life. The title would be Mistakes
Were Made. Tina Fey can be me. That would be delightful.
GRAND - Can you believe that 20 years ago, a group of
protestors kept you from being the Villanova commencement
speaker because they objected to your views on reproductive
rights and here we are all these years later at the same place
in America? What do you want to say to young women about
advocating for their rights?

I also think the past was a good deal
for white men, when they didn't have
to compete with women or people
of color for jobs and could count on
a hot meal and clean towels without
having to lift a finger.

ANNA QUINDLEN - I can believe it. I can always
believe in the willingness of human beings to hanker
after some good old days that weren't. I also think the
past was a good deal for white men, when they didn't
have to compete with women or people of color for
jobs and could count on a hot meal and clean towels
without having to lift a finger. But, you know, we are
done with all that. Younger women have to step up
now for sure. Gloria Steinem is 85 years old and Anita
Hill has done her time, brilliantly. But when I look
at Rebecca Traister and Leana Wen and Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez I feel hopeful for the future. The full
and unapologetic citizenship of women is a genie that
can't be put back in the bottle.
GRAND - It's been almost 30 years since you
penned your first novel, Object Lessons. How has your
writing process changed.
20 GRAND

JULY-AUG 2019

ANNA QUINDLEN - I have had the same editor for every
book, and I'm at number 20 now. My editor's name is Kate
Medina, and she has become an insistent voice in my head
when I'm reading over my first draft. So the biggest difference
between then and now is that I have to revise less, not because
I am any better but because instead of reading Kate's edits after
the fact I now hear her telling me what to do in real time.
GRAND - You've been involved in journalism for most of
your life. Can you sum up its current state in one sentence and
then sum up where you'd like to see it be in five years?
ANNA QUINDLEN - Big news organizations doing their
best work in years, local news getting battered, bruised, and
too often put out of business. In five years part one the same,
part two rebounding convincingly with community support and

Watch video of movie version of Anna Quindlen's book,
One True Thing staring Meryl Streep, Renée Zellweger
and William Hurt.

engagement. Democracy doesn't lodge in Washington, but in
cities and towns and zoning boards and school boards, and all
that requires daily local coverage.
GRAND - Black and Blue changed my thinking on abused
women from "why don't they just leave?" to one of appreciating
why they remain in abusive relationships. I literally wept at the
end. How do you think the "Me Too" movement has changed
how we look at domestic abuse?
ANNA QUINDLEN - I think the attitude toward domestic
abuse was changing slowly but surely even before the blessed
Me Too movement began. More women were coming forward,
more were being believed. But the crux of the problem is how
we raise our children. No boy should believe that he can physically or verbally abuse another person, or that girls and women
are less than. No girl should believe that she deserves
that sort of treatment, or that it is any possible version of love and devotion. Parents create good people
from the ground up. It's a profound moral responsibility, and it can't be shirked.
GRAND - You've been called a "monster of empathy," an oxymoron if ever we've heard one. Can you
describe the challenges and the rewards of being an
empath?
ANNA QUINDLEN - I once said in passing to my
daughter, "You know, Maria, you're only as happy as
your least happy child." I will never forget the look of
horror on her face, and how she said, "Mommy, is that
true?" I do feel the pain and confusion of my kids, and
my closest friends, pretty keenly, and sometimes that
means lying awake staring at the ceiling. But it's enormously useful as a novelist. When readers are complimenting one of the books, they most often say, "I fee;
as though I really know these people." And I suspect
that's because by the time I'm done working on a
novel I not only know them, I feel them.
GRAND - Now that you are experiencing grandparenthood firsthand, will you make grandparent issues the basis of a new novel? For example,
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GRAND Magazine - July/August 2019

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