- Janet Flanner
Janet Flanner (13 March, 1892 - 7 November, 1978) was an American
writer andjournalist who served as theParis correspondent of "The New Yorker " magazine from 1925 until she retired in 1975.Yagoda, Ben "About Town: The New Yorker and the World it Made", Scribner (New York): 2000, pg. 76] She wrote under the pen name Genet. She also published a singlenovel , "The Cubical City", set inNew York City .Biography
Early life
Janet Flanner was born in
Indianapolis, Indiana to Frank and Mary Flanner. She had two sisters, Marie and Hildegarde Flanner. Her father co-owned a mortuary and ran the first crematorium in the state ofIndiana . After a period spent traveling abroad with her family, she enrolled in theUniversity of Chicago in 1912, leaving the university in 1914. Two years later, she returned to her native city to take up a post as the first cinema critic on the local paper, the "Indianapolis Star".In 1918 she married William "Lane" Rehm, a friend that she had made while at the
University of Chicago . He was an artist inNew York City , and she later admitted that she married him to get out of Indianapolis. The marriage lasted for only a few years and they divorced amicably in 1926. Rehm was supportive of Flanner's career until his death.Flanner was
bisexual . In 1918, the same year she married her husband, she metSolita Solano (Sarah Wilkinson). They met inGreenwich Village , and the two became lifelong lovers, although both became involved with other lovers throughout their relationship. Solita Solano was drama editor for the "New York Tribune " and also wrote for "National Geographic ". The two women are portrayed as "Nip" and "Tuck" in the 1928 novel "Ladies Almanack ", by Djuna Barnes, who was a friend of Flanner's. While in New York, Janet Flanner moved in the circle of theAlgonquin Round Table , but was not a member. She also met the coupleJane Grant andHarold Ross through painterNeysa McMein . It was this connection that Harold Ross offered her the position of French Correspondent to the New Yorker.After periods in
Pennsylvania andNew York , in her mid twenties, Flanner left the United States forParis , quickly becoming part of the group of American writers and artists who lived in the city betweenWorld War I andWorld War II .Paris
As Paris correspondent for the "New Yorker" during the 1920s and 1930s, under the pen-name "Genêt", Flanner was a prominent member of the American
expatriate community which includedErnest Hemingway ,F. Scott Fitzgerald ,John Dos Passos ,e. e. cummings ,Hart Crane ,Djuna Barnes ,Ezra Pound , andGertrude Stein - the world of theLost Generation andLes Deux Magots . While in Paris she became very close friends withGertrude Stein and her lover,Alice B. Toklas . In 1932 she fell in love with Noel Haskins Murphy, a singer from a village just outside Paris, and had a short-lived romance. This did not affect her relationship with Solano. [http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/~stafflag/janetflanner.html]She played a crucial role in introducing her contemporaries - or at least those who read the "New Yorker" - to new artists in Paris, including
Pablo Picasso ,Georges Braque ,Henri Matisse ,André Gide ,Jean Cocteau , and theBallets Russes , as well as crime passionel andvernissage , the triumphant crossing of theAtlantic Ocean byCharles Lindbergh and the depravities of theStavisky Affair .In September 1925 Flanner published her first "Letter from Paris" in "The New Yorker", launched the previous February, launching a professional association destined to last for five decades. Flanner had first came to the attention of editor
Harold Ross through his first wife,Jane Grant , who was a friend of Flanner's from theLucy Stone League , an organization that fought for women to preserve their maiden names after marriage. Flanner joined the group in 1921. Ross famously thought "Genêt" was French for "Janet". [Yagoda, Ben "About Town: The New Yorker and the World it Made", Scribner (New York): 2000, pg. 77]Her prose style has since come to epitomise the "New Yorker" style" - its influence can be seen decades later in the prose of
Bruce Chatwin . An example: "The late Jean De Koven was an average American tourist in Paris but for two exceptions: she never set foot in the Opéra, and she was murdered."She was a frequent visitor to
Los Angeles because her mother, Mary, lived at 530 E. Marigold St. inAltadena with her sister, poetHildegarde Flanner , and brother-in-law,Frederick Monhoff .Later life
She lived in New York City during
World War II with Natalia Danesi Murray and her son William B. Murray; still writing for "The New Yorker". She went back to Paris in 1944 and continued her "Letters" until finally returning to New York City in 1975 when her failing health needed extra care. In 1948 she was made a knight ofLegion d'Honneur .Her work during World War II included not only her famous "Letter from Paris" (disrupted for a period) and seminal pieces on
Hitler 's rise to power (1936) and theNuremberg trials (1945), but a series of little-known weekly radio broadcasts for the NBC Blue Network during the months following the liberation of Paris in late 1944. Flanner authored one novel, "The Cubical City", which achieved little success.In 1958 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by
Smith College . She covered theSuez crisis , theSoviet invasion ofHungary , and the strife inAlgeria which led to the rise ofCharles de Gaulle . She was a leading member of the influential coterie of mostlylesbian women that includedNatalie Clifford Barney andDjuna Barnes . She was friends withGertrude Stein andAlice B. Toklas as well asErnest Hemingway . Flanner lived in Paris with Solano, who put away her own literary aspirations to be Flanner's personal secretary. Even though the relationship was not monogamous, they lived together for over 50 years.Extracts of her Paris journal were turned into a piece for chorus and orchestra by composer
Ned Rorem .In 1971, she was the third guest during the infamous scuffle between
Gore Vidal andNorman Mailer on theDick Cavett Show, getting in between the two after a drunken Mailer started insulting his fellow guests and their host.Four years later, she returned to New York City permanently to be cared for by Natalia Danesi Murray. Solano died in 1975 at the age of 87. Flanner died on 17 November, 1978 due to unknown causes.
Flanner was cremated and her ashes were scattered with Murray's over
Cherry Grove inFire Island where they met in 1940 according to Murray's son in his book "Janet, My Mother, and Me".References
External links
* [http://www.bsu.edu/ourlandourlit/Literature/Authors/flannerj.htm Flanner at Our Land, Our Literature]
* [http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0011.html Flanner at Women Come to the Front]
* [http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biof1/flan4.html Flanner at The Living Room]
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