Judith Rossner
| Judith Rossner | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Judith Louise Perelman March 31, 1935 Manhattan, New York City |
| Died | August 9, 2005 (aged 70) New York University Medical Center Manhattan, New York City |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Known for | Looking for Mr. Goodbar and August |
Judith Rossner (March 31, 1935 – August 9, 2005) was an American novelist, best known for her acclaimed best sellers Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1975) and August (1983).
Born in New York City, on March 31, 1935, Judith Louise Perelman was raised in the Bronx. Her father, Joseph Perelman, was a textile official; her mother, Dorothy Shapiro Perelman, was a public schoolteacher. Rossner wanted to be a writer, even before she could read or write, and dictated poems and stories to her "warmly supportive" mother. She was also encouraged by an uncle, the American-Canadian writer Charles Yale Harrison, best known for his best-selling story of World War I, Generals Die in Bed (1930).
After graduating from Taft High School, Rossner attended the City College of New York from 1952 to 1954. She left school to marry Robert Rossner (1932–99), a teacher and writer. The couple had two children, Jean (born 1960) and Daniel (born 1965).
She was unsuccessful in selling short stories to women's magazines, but, in 1963, she did publish a book for children, What Kind of Feet Does a Bear Have? (Bobbs-Merrill), with illustrations by Irwin Rosenhouse.
Rossner worked as a secretary at various jobs while continuing to write. She gave up a job at Scientific American because her interest in the work interfered with her writing. She went to work instead in a real estate office (where she was "bored out of [her] mind" and finished her first novel, To the Precipice. This story of a young woman who married her way out of poverty was published by William Morrow in 1966 to positive reviews. As Thomas Lask presciently noted in his review for The New York Times, "[Rossner] is a lady we will hear from again."
In 1969, Rossner published her second novel, Nine Months in the Life of an Old Maid (Dial Press), about a woman in her late thirties and her sister's unexpected pregnancy; The New York Times complimented its "... unusual literary climate rich in universal implications." After its publication, Rossner and her family moved to Acworth, New Hampshire, to live on a rural commune while her husband taught at a progressive school there. In 1971, missing the city, Rossner moved back to New York with her children. In 1972, she published Any Minute I Can Split (McGraw-Hill), the story of a very pregnant woman who leaves her husband and runs away to a commune, "a sunburst of human relationships." The following year, Rossner and her husband divorced. Rossner went to work as a secretary in a methadone clinic to support herself and her children.
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