"All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable" - Fran Lebowitz
The stunningly sardonic New York writer Fran Lebowitz, now 70, isn't quite sure why young people are still interested in her.
"Truthfully, young people have always been talking to me and truth is, I don't know why… I've always been old at heart so I guess I haven't aged."
Photo: Christopher Macsurak
Lebowitz tells Kim Hill the interest may be related to her living in New York in the 1970s - a "glowing era" for today's youth.
It isn't necessarily reciprocated, though.
"I don't dislike [young people], I just don't care about them as a group. And the people who do are the people trying to sell them stuff."
Lebowitz says she had a happy childhood in a "very nice" New Jersey town 40 miles away from New York City.
She visited the city many times through her childhood, falling in love with the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) as a six-year-old.
"As soon as I was old enough to realise 'wow, I'm in New York', I wanted to live here. Always... I really love city life and this is the most city-like city in this country."
Lebovitz struggled at her public high school but her parents were so desperate for her to go to college so sent her to a private girls school.
She says they never forgave her for being expelled.
"People are less flexible than they advertise. That's what they wanted and they didn't get it."
Photo: Supplied
In her late teens, Lebovitz moved to New York, knowing no one and without the one employable skill for young women at the time - typing.
Every Wednesday, she scoured the job listings in the street newspaper The Village Voice.
"The good thing about New York when I was young was there were just thousands of bad jobs easily had. So I would look for a bad job, I would apply for the job - you'd almost always get it… But I never worked on Wednesdays because every Wednesday I'd think 'Maybe I'll get a bad job that I prefer to this bad job'. It took me quite a while to realise I just don't like to work."
Lebowitz got her job writing film reviews for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine through a friend, then wrote a humour column. She went on to publish two best-selling collections of essays, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies — which have been gathered together in the newly released The Fran Lebowitz Reader.
Since the 1990s, Lebovitz has made a living from speaking engagements, claiming a prolonged "writers blockade".
Also prolonged was Lebowitz's ability to get her head around the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences, she says.
"The most startling thing for me was that something was happening which was not like anything that had ever happened to me. When you're my age, that doesn't happen. No matter what happens when you're my age it somehow reminds you of something else. This was like nothing else that ever happened.
"I don't like being told what to do but there's certain areas of life, for instance, medical science, which I know nothing about. So if actual scientists tell me something, I will believe them… When people ask me about the vaccine I say 'I don't have medical opinions. What would they be based on?'."
"I couldn't get vaccinations fast enough… if they would bottle this, I would drink it. I was elated and thrilled they had this vaccine. This is an incredible scientific achievement. And if everyone had this vaccine, this would go away."
For more Fran Lebowitz, check out Pretend It's A City - a Netflix docuseries directed by her dear friend Martin Scorcese:
