Julie Salamon’s Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein, an Author Interview

If you are a college-educated boomer woman, you may have felt that Wendy Wasserstein knew you, as if every few years she’d take a temperature reading of your life and your friends’ lives. How was it going, this work of becoming yourself and taking your place in the world? Wendy would ask. Then she’d write a play about it. And the play would be on PBS starring Swoozie Kurtz and Meryl Streep. Or on Broadway, starring Joan Allen, and winning a Pulitzer Prize.

Meanwhile, if you were a writer, actor, playwright, producer, editor, theatergoer, or magazine or newspaper reader—which is to say, almost everyone—in New York City from the late 1970s through 2006, you probably felt you knew Wendy Wasserstein. You may well have known her personally, but if not, you felt as if you did. Shortly after she died, her longtime friend Frank Rich wrote about this enormous affection between New Yorkers and Wasserstein (in as humble and heartfelt a piece he has ever written) for the New York Times, a short essay titled “Everybody’s Wendy.” But in that same piece, Rich also touched on what seemed, at the end, the shocking secrecy in Wendy Wasserstein’s life. She died without many of her closest family or friends having any knowledge of how sick she had been and, it seemed, without anyone knowing who had fathered her baby, Lucy Jane. “How could the most public artist in New York keep so much locked up?” Rich asked.

Well, we have an answer now.

With Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein (The Penguin Press, $29.95), author Julie Salamon has achieved something exquisite, irresistibly lively, and rare. She’s given readers and theatergoers and New Yorkers a return visit with a dear friend whom we had loved and lost. And she’s let us in on secrets Wasserstein kept from everyone, drawing us closer to Wasserstein than she let anyone come in life. Salamon has told this psychologically complex life story in such a gripping way that it will intrigue even the reader – lo, is there one? —who does not know of Wendy Wasserstein or the political and personal importance of her work, or who does not already imagine how juicy the life story might be.

Recently, we chatted with Julie Salamon about this mesmerizing new biography.

The Progressive Reader: Although not all of us knew Wendy Wasserstein personally, many felt a sense of loss when she died, as if a dear, important friend had passed away.

Julie Salamon: That reaction was remarkably widespread. As I began to research the book, I found–over and over–a deep sense of loss, particularly among women and occasionally among men. Even people who weren’t that familiar with her theater work had either read essays she’d written in the New York Times or The New Yorker, or seen her on The Charlie Rose Show. She had accomplished a great deal–the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony, et cetera–but she came across as someone familiar, a little messy, a little insecure, very accessible, very warm. She wrote about things in her own life that were of interest to many people–how to deal with her crazy mother, having a child as a single mother, her feelings about being a successful woman but feeling alone.

Reader: Uncommon Women and Others and The Heidi Chronicles seem to us to have been the plays that had the biggest impact.

Salamon: With these two plays, Wasserstein expressed the uncertainty many of her contemporaries faced and she did it with the style that became her trademark–poignancy laced with wit, and a remarkable sense of the zeitgeist. She was born in 1950, in the midst of the Baby Boom, and came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when every convention was called into question. In Uncommon Women, she spoke directly to the competing demands on women like her–middle-class or upper-middle-class women who were highly educated. Uncommon Women draws on Wasserstein’s experience at Mount Holyoke. When she entered school as a freshman in 1967, the women were expected to dress for dinner, to gather for milk and cookies, and even to learn sports that might help with their future husbands’ careers. By the time she graduated in 1971, everything had changed. The student body had become politicized. Wendy spent her junior year “abroad” at Amherst, then an all-male college, which was experimenting with the idea of going coed. The expectations for women had expanded exponentially, and so had their confusion about what they were going to do next. Uncommon Women struck a powerful nerve, and reached a broad audience when it was broadcast nationally on PBS, with a young Meryl Streep playing one of the women. Wendy’s contemporaries felt the play spoke directly to them, though older viewers were shocked by the play’s frank discussion of “women’s business”–periods and orgasms. As I did the research for the book, I was reminded how much things have changed in the past 30 years.

Uncommon Women was first produced in 1977; The Heidi Chronicles appeared a dozen years later and reflected a different set of concerns and issues. Unlike the women in Uncommon Women, who are young women trying to figure out their futures, the Heidi character is an adult, a successful art historian. She feels frustrated, betrayed by the women’s movement, which had encouraged her career but hadn’t helped her figure out how to manage her personal life, to have a family. These same issues were troubling Wasserstein and making headlines. A year before Wasserstein wrote Heidi, Newsweek magazine terrified the women of Wasserstein’s generation with a cover story that said if a female college graduate was still unmarried at thirty, the changes of finding a husband were one in five. At age 35, their chances were almost nil. The study the article was based on was discredited a few years later, but not in time to prevent a panic among professional women. With Heidi, Wasserstein captured the fear that was in the air. When Wasserstein decided to end the play by having Heidi adopt a baby, as a single mother, older feminists like Betty Friedan weren’t happy, thinking she had sold out, implying that the only way a woman could be happy was via motherhood.

Reader: What were some of the specific characters or moments in those plays (as well as others) that, in your opinion, caught the public’s attention and why?

Salamon: In both plays, Wasserstein captured a shift in the relationships between women and women and men and women, a move toward family-type relationships among friends. This was starting to happen on television as well, on shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Rhoda--and twenty years later in Sex and the City and shows like Seinfeld and Friends. Honor Moore, who was writing for Ms. magazine was struck by the relationships between women that Wasserstein portrayed, in particular a moment when seven young women–portraying students at Mount Holyoke–dance to a calypso beat. “It is strange at first and then moving to see these women–who throughout the play have been competing, waiting for phone calls from men, examining a first diaphragm…and otherwise comically demonstrating white middle-class female paralysis, dancing together so happily,” wrote Moore.

In Heidi, the main character is in love with a man who is gay. He remains her best friend but becomes annoyed by her uncertainty, particularly when he has seen so many of his friends die of AIDS, which had become epidemic at the time. Again, Wasserstein’s plays were reflecting the times and concerns of people who were her peers–and who happened to be theatergoers, New York Times and New Yorker readers. She was in sync with her audience.

Reader: She was a boomer. What do you think her impact was on boomers? Do you think she is less known or unknown to younger generations?

Salamon: Her impact on boomers was to provide a mirror. Her concerns–petty and grand–reflected what was going on around her. She is certainly less known to a younger generation, although I’ve been interested to see how many young women interested in theater know her. Uncommon Women is frequently produced by high schools and colleges because it provides several strong female roles for young women.

I’m not sure Wasserstein saw the decline in awareness about her. Up until she died, she was in much demand as a public speaker and essayist. Her last play, Third, which was still playing at Lincoln Center when she died, played to sold-out houses.

Reader: Her plays were really political and had political repercussions inasmuch as feminism is political. Did she have any views about artists as political activists? Did you think she felt that the artist had a political responsibility?

Salamon: With Wasserstein, politics was personal. She was not a political activist in the way Miller or Odets or Weill were but she wanted her plays to say something meaningful about women’s lives, and they did. In that way she was quite political. Her one foray into writing directly about the political scene–An American Daughter–was not one of her more successful plays. I think she did feel the artist had a political responsibility, even though her own political consciousness was a mixed bag. She gravitated toward the world of the rich and powerful–the world occupied by her brother Bruce, who became a billionaire as a Wall Street investment advisor. She didn’t identify much with the downtrodden, but she did believe that everyone should have access to theater. In the last decade of her life, she and Roy Harris, who was stage manager for several of her plays, began an organization called Open Doors, aimed at introducing theater to high school students who otherwise might not have the opportunity.

Reader: What made you want to write this book?

Salamon: I’ve been lucky to be able to write books on a variety of subjects, each reflecting a passion of mine, or a great story I stumbled on. This was a rare case where my editor asked me if I’d be interested in writing a biography of Wendy Wasserstein. At first I wasn’t sure. A theater biography seemed too limited. But as a learned more about her life and her family, I began to see I had the opportunity to tell a story that had the ingredients of a novel. A great central character–Wendy–who was universally beloved, the person who everyone loved and felt they knew. Yet after she died those closest to her realized they didn’t really know her at all. I could see that her story would be fascinating, with a great context–the world of the baby boomers and a mystery at its center. Also, I spent several years as the film critic at the Wall Street Journal, and then as a critic and arts writer for the New York Times. I knew this story would also allow me to bring my critical faculties into play, as well as my desire to tell a good story.

Reader: The story you tell is a mystery story, a thriller about a seemingly socially and emotionally revealing writer who was actually so secretive that the paternity of her child was never publicly revealed. Did you know that this would be the story when you started researching the book? (Also, do you know who Lucy’s father is?!).

Salamon: The first question almost everyone asks when I tell them I’ve written a book about Wendy Wasserstein: Who is the baby’s father. Or, how is her little girl? I’ve been astonished at the range and number of people who were fascinated by Wasserstein’s birth story, which she wrote in intimate detail in the New Yorker, just a few months after her baby was born. I’m 99.9% sure I knew who the baby’s father is. But to find out, you have to read the book!!! [Ed note: We read the book, dear reader, and still don’t feel at all sure about Lucy’s paternity. Your thoughts?]

Reader: One reductive way of looking at this story is that Wendy’s mother was so critical. Wendy could never measure up. Yet Wendy had a strong sense — at least in her work — of women as valuable, of individual women — with all of their insecurities and life obstacles — as highly valuable. Where did she get that?

Salamon: While it’s easy to blame Wendy’s insecurities on Lola, her mother, one also has to give her credit. Lola was supportive as well as critical. Her apartment had a wall of lacquered clippings about Wendy and her work, as well as the accomplishments of her other children. I think Lola sent a mixed message, which Wendy received. You are better than everyone else but also not as good. This notion of superior-inferior runs through all of Wendy’s work.  And Lola certainly saw herself as equal to–or better than–most people, a very strong woman. Wendy’s oldest sister Sandra, who was 13 years older than Wendy, became a high level executive at a time most women never got beyond the job of boss’s secretary in the corporate world.

Reader: Wendy was a mess. And this story devolves into an unbelievable mess — a daughter born much to early to a mother (Wendy) who many might argue was too old with an uncle as new father who then died suddenly and so on. The eponymous Heidi is so tidy! But, near the end, reading this story is like watching a car wreck. Was there something structurally wrong with this “car” from the beginning?  Or was there some turn in the road that, looking back, you would have advised Wendy to take or not take?

Salamon: I believe Wendy was greatly influenced by one of her family’s central secrets–her brother Abner, who became developmentally disabled as a child and was sent away and more or less “disappeared” from the family. Wendy’s parents continued to visit him in an institution, but the children were kept apart from their brother. I believe this led to an essential fear, that if you aren’t perfect you might be sent away. This definitely was a strong factor. And it’s true Wendy’s life is a mess, as you say, a kind of car wreck. But it was also a very full life. She had an expansive creative life, a vast assortment of friends, and she took those friendships very seriously. It’s true she operated in a kind of crazy way, but she was an artist, not a straight arrow. Would she have been happier if she’d taken a more conventional route, or at least one that wasn’t so circuitous and hidden all the time? Maybe–or maybe not. Certainly the Wasserstein story is tragic, filled with early death and much sadness. But there’s also a lot of exhilaration and excitement. And without her “craziness” I’m not sure Wendy could have revealed herself the way she did–and it was her fragility and uncertainty that people could identify with.

Reader: Have you heard from anyone in Wendy’s family and/or her “family” about the book?

Salamon: I wrote the book with the blessings of Andre Bishop, her dear friend and longtime producer and literary executor, but without him having any editorial control. He didn’t read the book until it was in bound galleys and–I’m happy to say–has told me he feels the book captures the complexity of Wendy’s life. The family learned about the project after I’d already signed a contract with Penguin. At first Wendy’s siblings and nieces and other family members were apprehensive, but ultimately a great many of them were hugely helpful–include Wendy’s brother Bruce, who died six weeks after I interviewed him. I sent galleys to several of Wendy’s family members and close friends, and have the sense that most feel I’ve been fair without shying away from the truth–or truths!

Reader: Now that it’s been awhile since you researched and wrote this book, do you–with the perspective of a little time away from the close-up act of writing–have any new realizations about Wendy and her story?

Salamon: This isn’t exactly a realization about Wendy, but a personal realization. I grew up in a small town in Ohio but have lived in New York my entire adult life. I’ve worked for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and been published by Houghton Mifflin, Random House, Workman and The Penguin Press, all sophisticated places. Yet while doing the research for this book, I came to understand New Yorkers–the ones born and bred here, “real” New Yorkers–in a way I hadn’t before. Through Wendy’s story I reached a better understanding of the endless striving and the parochialism of New Yorkers, as well as a greater appreciation of the yearning and maybe eternal sense of dissatisfaction that fends off complacency. I also came to see the wider reach of Wendy’s work and sensibility, how predictive her work was of things to come in the society at large.

Reader: What would you like the public to know most about Wendy?

Salamon: That she was a woman who engaged in her time and place at full throttle. While I understand the fascination with her story lies in the secrets and neuroses, I hope young people in particular draw inspiration from her passion, and her desire to make her mark in the world.

Reader: What are you writing next?

Salamon: I have many ideas in the works but I’m much too superstitious to say until I am further along!