Thursday evening, September 3, 2026 – Sitting in the audience at Irene Diamond Stage at Signature Theatre on West 42nd Street, I was ostensibly paying attention to the revival-revision by La Femme Theatre Productions of Wendy Wasserstein‘s 1997 play, An American Daughter — a thematic amalgam of, among others, feminism, duplicitous politics, abortion rights, pregnancy struggles, gay mores and humor, preppiness, family dynamics, Jewishness (and WASPiness). etc, etc, — but all I could think about was my friendship with Wendy, likewise kindled in the fall of 1997, when the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation chose her to host the National Book Awards..
The luminous smiles on our faces in the pre-Ceremony photo you see above were the commencement of an all-too-brief friendship.
Wendy introduced herself to the assembled multitude of publishing executives in the Marriott Marquis Ballroom as “the Billy Crystal of American letters” and speculated how funny it would be “if the National Book Awards. really did become like the Oscars, paparazzi chasing the judges of the childrens’ book award down the street.”
Wendy’s ebullient spirit will not mind if I signpost our journey together with meals and snacks shared, beginning with a “homemade” takeout breakfast she unbagged in the kitchen of her sprawling Central Park West apartment — bagels, a fruit plate, coffee, and orange juice — while two immense coon cats paced trippingly across the kitchen table. Then there was the diner a few blocks away near Lincoln Center where I prudently ordered an egg white omelette, and Wendy followed suit — only to call the waitress back over and, with a rueful grin, ask her to add American cheese.
Some months later, Wendy and I met for lunch farther afield, at the new W Hotel in midtown; the maitre d‘ guided me to a plush velvet banquette in the corner of the dining room where Wendy, sipping on a glass of water, awaited. Then there was that coffee shop near Carnegie Hall..
…and so it went. Wendy returned to host the 1998 National Book Awards; her bemused escort was André Bishop. From the podium, she described the occasion as a tribute to “the author’s craft…integrity, loneliness — and insanity,” adding that the event was, more deeply, about “the continuity of the American voice.”
Wendy joined the Foundation’s Board of Directors and served with dedication. Several years of prose ensued. In 2001, FS&G published Wendy’s essays, Shiksa Goddess: (Or, How I Spent My Forties) . She inscribed it to me, “For Neil — who knows from Shiksas and Goddesses — all my Love, Wendy.”
Her absences from my life — from all our lives — became more attenuated.
In the wintertime of 2005, when Wendy edited Sloth: The Seven Deadly Sins, for Oxford University Press, I emailed with congratulations; she said I should come to the Parlour at the Café des Artistes on West 67th Street, where she signed her new book: “For dearest Neil — embrace your inner Sloth. It’s time. Love, Wendy.”
Wendy sipped a bowl of pea soup with difficulty, her voice halting, face averted, shading her eyes.
That was the last time I saw her. In January, 2006, I learned that, suffering from cancer treatments, Wendy had been in a coma since Thanksgiving. She passed at the end of the month.
After a bittersweet full-house gathering in March at the Vivian Beaumont Theater , tearfully replete with adoring remembrances, and performance excerpts from Uncommon Women and Others, The Sisters Rosensweig and The Heidi Chronicles by Andre Bishop, Mary Jane Patrone, Jill Eikenberry, Swoosie Kurtz, Christopher Durang, Robert Klein, Linda Lavin, Jane Rosenthal, Daniel Sullivan, Terence McNally, Joann Allen, and Wendy’s loving niece, Pam Wasserstein, there was one more meal to be relished in Wendy’s memory.
We crossed Broadway and reconvened for drinks and dim sum at another local favorite of hers, Shun Lee West.