Linda Rosenkrantz

American writer

Linda Rosenkrantz

Born|  (1934-05-26) May 26, 1934 (age 90)
Bronx, New York
Occupation| Author
Education| University of Michigan
Spouse| Christopher Finch
Children| 1

Linda Rosenkrantz (born May 26, 1934) is an American writer, known for her innovations in the realm of “nonfiction fiction,” most prominently in her novel Talk, a New York Review Books classic.[1]

## Life and career

[edit]

Linda Rosenkrantz was born and raised up in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of Samuel, a garment industry executive, and Frances, an artist. She is a graduate of the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan and the University of Michigan.[2]

After college, she joined the Editorial and Publicity Department of Parke-Bernet auction galleries. She was the founding editor of Auction magazine,[3] published first by Sotheby-Parke-Bernet, and then by Institutional Investor, from 1967 to 1972, featuring original cover art by such artists as Salvador Dalí and Peter Hujar, and articles by eminent art critics and antiques experts.[4][5]

In 1975, Rosenkrantz was the subject of an early Chuck Close color-grid painting, Linda,[6] now owned by the Akron Art Museum.[7][8] Around this time, Rosenkrantz was a part of the New York art world, her immediate circle including such artists as Hujar, Joseph Raffael, Paul Thek and Susan Brockman,[9] being a charter member of Ray Johnson’s New York Correspondence School, as well as attending Warhol parties at the Factory.[10][11][12]

In 1986, Rosenkrantz began writing a weekly column, Contemporary Collectibles, which was widely syndicated by Copley News Service for 25 years. In 1990, she relocated to Los Angeles with her husband, writer Christopher Finch, and daughter Chloe.[13]

A painting of Linda Rosenkrantz by Chuck Close

## Talk

[edit]

In 1968, Rosenkrantz’s novel Talk, based on the taped conversations of herself and two friends in East Hampton, Long Island, was published by Putnam’s in New York and by Anthony Blond in London two years later, followed by a New American Library paperback edition. Talk was the subject of a double-page spread in the fledgling New York magazine and garnered feature reviews in, among others, The New York Times, Washington Post, American Vogue and in British Vogue, which picked it as one of its Books of the Year.[14][15][16]

Nearly half a century later, Talk was reissued as a New York Review Books Classic,[17] receiving positive attention in The New York Times,[18][19] New Statesman, The Guardian,[20] Paris Review[21] (whose then-editor Lorin Stein, picked Talk as his #1 summer book of 2015), New Republic,[22] The Nation[23] Harper's, The Village Voice (”a favorite of the year”), and other periodicals. An excerpt appeared on Literary Hub, and Rosenkrantz was featured on NPR’s Bookworm show[24] and New York magazine’s Sex Lives podcast.[25][26][27][28][29]

Talk has been translated into Spanish, La Charla,[30] published by Editorial Anagrama, Barcelona 2017 and into Italian, Talk!,[31] 8tto Edizioni, Milano 2019.

## Peter Hujar’s Day

[edit]

In 1974, Linda Rosenkrantz embarked on another tapecentric project. She asked a number of her friends and acquaintances, including artist Chuck Close and photographer Peter Hujar, to write down everything they did on one particular day, then to meet with her to report and record in conversation the events of their day. Forty years later, in 2021, a transcript of the Hujar chapter was published in book form by Magic Hour Press[32] as Peter Hujar’s Day. Articles about and by Rosenkrantz appeared in such international publications as i-D,[33] Frieze.com,[34] El Pais[35] and The Guardian[36]

## Baby Names

[edit]

In 1988, Rosenkrantz co-wrote with Pamela Redmond Satran, Beyond Jennifer and Jason: An Enlightened Guide to Naming Your Baby, (St. Martin’s Press), a book that is considered to have revolutionized the naming of children in the US and beyond, the first name guide to organize names into lists, identify style trends, calculate name popularity, and analyze the effects of pop culture on naming trends.[37] This was followed by a series of nine more books on such specialty areas as British names, Irish names, Jewish names, and Cool Names and the encyclopedic Baby Name Bible.

In 2008, the website nameberry.com was launched by Rosenkrantz and Satran, based on their ten books on the subject.[38] Nameberry has become the world's leading website devoted to baby names. It is widely recognized as the international authority on baby name style, history, and trends, attracting six million unique monthly visitors and 25 million page views from virtually every country around the world, and is still growing.[39][40]

## Ex

[edit]

In 2018, five sections of Rosenkrantz’s taped work-in-progress, Ex, were excerpted and published in comix form on the Lena Dunham/Jenni Konner website lennyletter. The concept of this book was to invite a number of old boyfriends for dinner, one by one, serve each of them the same menu, and have a tape recorder running from the moment they entered her Upper East Side apartment to the moment they left. The resultant edited transcripts display not only a diversity of male personalities but shifting versions of Rosenkrantz herself.[41]

## Bibliography

[edit]

* Talk, G. P. Putnams, 1968
* Gone Hollywood: The Movie Colony in the Golden Age (with Christopher Finch), Doubleday, 1979
* Soho (novel written with Christopher Finch under pseudonym C. L. Byrd), Doubleday (publisher), 1983
* Beyond Jennifer & Jason (with Pamela Redmond Satran), St. Martin’s Press, 1988
* Sotheby’s Guide to Animation Art (with Christopher Finch), Henry Holt & Co, 1998
* My Life as a List: 207 Things about My Bronx Childhood, Clarkson Potter, 1999
* Telegram: Modern History as Told Through More Than 400 Witty, Poignant and Revealing Telegrams, Henry Holt & Co, 2003
* Cool Names for Babies (with Pamela Redmond Satran), St. Martin’s Press, 2003
* The Baby Name Bible (with Pamela Redmond Satran), St. Martin’s Press, 2007
* Talk, New York Review Books Classics, 2015
* Peter Hujar’s Day, Magic Hour Press, 2021

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Talk". New York Review Books. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
2. ^ Rosenkrantz, Linda (1999). My Life as a List: 207 Things about my (Bronx) Childhood. Clarkson Potter. p. 89\. ISBN 978-0609603673.
3. ^ AnOther (2016-04-25). "Inside the Mind of Linda Rosenkrantz: Part II". AnOther. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
4. ^ "Episode 50 | Linda Rosenkrantz". Magic Hour. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
5. ^ "Bits of history have value beyond price". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
6. ^ Norman, Michael; clevel; .com (2009-09-01). "Contemporary art legend Chuck Close talks about painting, creativity and a new exhibition at the Akron Art Museum". cleveland. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
7. ^ "washingtonpost.com: Style Live: Chuck Close". www.washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
8. ^ Kane, Dan. "Chuck Close exhibition opening at Akron Art Museum". Canton Repository. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
9. ^ Smith, Joel (2017). Peter Hujar: Speed of Life. Aperture. ISBN 978-1-59711-414-1.
10. ^ "Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP | David Zwirner". www.davidzwirner.com. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
11. ^ O'Connor, Maureen. "The 'It' Girl Who Became a Baby-Naming Expert". The Cut. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
12. ^ "Joseph Raffael - Interview". josephraffael.com. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
13. ^ AnOther (2016-04-18). "Inside the Mind of Literary Voyeur Linda Rosenkrantz". AnOther. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
14. ^ Hitchens, Antonia (2020-01-07). "How Much Power Do Women Want? A Novel Circles the Question". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
15. ^ "Inside the Mind of Linda Rosenkrantz: Part III". AnOther. 2016-05-03. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
16. ^ Sutherl, Amy (October 21, 2021). "Kristen Radtke: Reading as an antidote to loneliness - The Boston Globe". The Boston Globe. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
17. ^ "A World Is Hidden in the Things People Say: Linda Rosenkrantz's 'Talk'". The Millions. 2015-07-20. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
18. ^ Williams, John (2015-08-25). "Among Friends: Linda Rosenkrantz on 'Talk'". ArtsBeat. The New York Times. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
19. ^ Williams, John (2015-07-29). "New Books From Louisa Hall, Christian Kracht, Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Others". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
20. ^ Berman, Judy (2015-07-15). "Talk by Linda Rosenkrantz review – a reissued 'reality novel' examines friends". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
21. ^ Rosenkrantz, Linda (2015-07-08). "Sex, Lies, and Audiotape". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
22. ^ Wiener, Anna (2015-06-25). "Beach Babes". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
23. ^ Rothfeld, Becca (2015-11-25). "Real, Realist, Realistic, and False". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
24. ^ "Linda Rosenkrantz: Talk | Bookworm". KCRW. 2015-07-20. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
25. ^ "Talk by Linda Rosenkrantz, introduction by Stephen Koch". Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
26. ^ "Talk (New York Review Books, 2015) by Linda Rosenkrantz". C Magazine Issue 129 Page 72. 2016-03-01. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
27. ^ "A Review of Talk by Linda Rosenkrantz". The Literary Review. 2015-11-30. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
28. ^ thwack (2015-10-16). "TALK by Linda Rosenkrantz reviewed by Rory McCluckie". Cleaver Magazine. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
29. ^ "Sex and the city: the novel that listens in on New York". New Statesman. 2021-06-08. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
30. ^ "La charla - Rosenkrantz, Linda - 978-84-339-7972-8". Editorial Anagrama. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
31. ^ "8tto Edizioni: quattro amiche fondano una casa editrice, e cercano romanzi e racconti "originali"". ilLibraio.it (in Italian). 2019-10-01. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
32. ^ "Peter Hujar's Day by Linda Rosenkrantz". Magic Hour. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
33. ^ Merola, Alex (2022-01-18). "A day in the life of legendary photographer Peter Hujar". i-D. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
34. ^ Rosenkrantz, Linda (2021-11-25). "What It Was Like When Peter Hujar Took Your Photograph". Frieze. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
35. ^ MacLennan, Gloria Crespo (2022-02-17). "El mítico día en que Peter Hujar retrató a Allen Ginsberg". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 2022-05-13.
36. ^ "What links To Paradise author Hanya Yanagihara to the CIA and a baby-name book?". the Guardian. 2022-01-15. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
37. ^ A.O. (2013-08-25). "An Interview with Linda Rosenkrantz from Nameberry". Waltzing More Than Matilda. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
38. ^ "8 best baby name books that help make the important decision easier". The Independent. 2021-04-15. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
39. ^ "13 Awesome Celebrity Baby Names". HuffPost. 2019-01-16. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
40. ^ "102 Vintage Baby Names Worth Reviving". HuffPost. 2019-06-20. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
41. ^ "EX #4: David | LENNY". www.lennyletter.com. Retrieved 2022-05-13.

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF

National|

* Catalonia
* Israel