Fran Lebowitz, the celebrated American wit, has built a career on not writing. Despite decades of writer’s block, her sharp observations have earned her a hit Netflix series and a new UK edition of The Fran Lebowitz Reader. She dismisses claims of low self-esteem, attributing her paralysis to what she calls ‘excessive reverence for the written word’ and a ‘paralysing professionalism’.
Lebowitz, 70, refuses to own a mobile phone, wifi or computer, relying on friends for online orders and even borrowing David Sedaris’s apartment for a Zoom interview during lockdown. Yet she sees this dependence as a stroke of luck: ‘Isn’t it lucky I have friends who have these things and can do them for me?’
Her aversion to technology contrasts with her self-sufficiency in the 1970s, when she wrote columns for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine and bestselling essay collections. As a lesbian, she faced intrusive questions about marriage and pregnancy on talk shows, but simply smiled and smoked.
Now a ‘public speaker’ in Martin Scorsese’s documentaries, Lebowitz delivers off-the-cuff opinions on topics from holidays to literature. She rejects the idea that books should mirror readers: ‘A book is not a mirror – it’s a door.’ Growing up in New Jersey, she never sought representation in novels: ‘I never thought, “How can I change the world?” I thought, “How can I do what I want without going to jail?”’
