Fran Lebowitz’s Guide to Life (And Parties)

Earlier this year, Anna interviewed writer and humorist Fran Lebowitz onstage at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in California. But for most of her adult life, Fran’s lived in New York City, where she found early success with her first two books, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the years since, she hasn’t published much, citing a decades-long writer’s block. So she’s become a professional talker, which you may recognize from Martin Scorsese’s multi-part Netflix series, Pretend It’s A City, and which you’ll definitely hear in this conversation as Fran never misses an opportunity to make her audience laugh. In front of a live audience in Berkeley, Anna and Fran talk about her early years in New York, her strategies for navigating all types of parties, and why her 40+ year old sofa is her favorite place to read.