The Proust Questionnaire: Joyce Wadler
An interview with the humourist and journalist Joyce Wadler
Dear reader! To say that I’m thrilled that Joyce Wadler1 has accepted to be my very first interviewee in this series is an understatement. She is one of my favourite writers on substack, and if you are not already a subscriber, I urge you to go and check out her work right here 👇
In this series in general, I’m planning to interview my favourite writers on Substack using the famous Proust Questionnaire. This questionnaire, designed by Marcel Proust, holds a tradition in my native country of France 🐓
What I personally like about Joyce’s writing is its effortless elegance. It's extremely funny and moving, but always with a gentle and distinctive lightness of touch. She has the gift of turning the mundane into the absurd—something in which I’ll confess, I have a particular interest.
Now without further ado, let’s discoverJoyce Wadler’s Proust Questionnaire!
Joyce, what is your idea of perfect happiness?
Waking up in the morning in a country inn with a man I love and a bathroom with a window. Ideally, it would be a room with two bathrooms; I don’t believe romantic love can sustain without separate bathrooms, but they didn’t design nineteenth-century country inns that way.
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Joan of Arc. She was so certain she was right about everything. Then again, she could ride a horse, so maybe not. And I’m an atheist. This is hard. Can we go on to the next question?
Which living person do you most admire?
Everyone who works for Doctors Without Borders.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Fear of rejection. People pleasing. It’s the same thing, isn’t it? (I know the answer, I just put that in question form so you’ll think I value your opinion and like me.)
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Checking E-mail while on the phone with me.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I garage my car in Manhattan. And sometimes, I send my pillowcases to the laundry to be pressed. I love the smell of professionally pressed linen, it reminds me of staying in a hotel. And if you compare the cost of a night in a hotel in New York City to the cost of professionally laundered pillowcases, you can see how much money I’m saving.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Selflessness. Unless it involves offering me a seat in the subway.
On what occasion do you lie?
There’s a wonderful story about Steven Sondheim told by a composer named Jason Robert Brown. I will mess it up, so I am linking to it. Brown, as a young composer, went to the opening of a Sondheim show, which he found very disappointing, and afterward went to dinner with Sondheim. He said nothing about the show for twenty minutes until Sondheim asked if he’d liked it and by then it was obvious he had not. Brown called Sondheim the next morning to apologize and Sondheim said – and this is me paraphrasing Brown paraphrasing Sondheim -- once a creation has been put into the world, you have only one responsibility to its creator: be supportive. Even if you hated the show, if you go see the person who created it afterward, the only thing you should say is, “I loved it". You should be enough of a friend to lie.
That’s the way I feel. If someone comes to you with a manuscript they’re concerned about and asks for editorial input, it’s fine to tell them how you think it might be improved. When someone has published something, it’s done; they’ve put their heart out there; they’ve told the story the best they could, this isn’t the time to criticize. You find the things that are wonderful in the piece and you praise those. And if you have to lie, you lie. It’s easy to demoralize a writer and a demoralized writer is crushed. I’m amazed at how many people do not understand this.
What is your greatest regret?
I stayed way too long in a lot of bad relationships.
When and where are you happiest?
In a red convertible, top-down, in the Catskills in August, with ‘60s rock on the radio and someone I love next to me. Mustangs are good, but Miatas are better.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I managed to get humor into The New York Times.
If you could choose to come back as something, what would it be?
Myself, at 24, but with confidence. I sometimes think a redo might be nice. But then I remember how hard I worked as a reporter and I never want to work that hard again. It’s much more fun to make things up.
What is your most treasured possession?
An old photo of my grandmother, Gussie, and my uncle, Artie, in the Catskills, where my family had a farm and a small hotel in the ‘50s. He’s a cocky, muscular guy in an old T-shirt, standing with his arm protectively around his mother, who’s in a housedress and apron, which she lived in running the hotel. My grandmother thought I was perfect as I was – it was probably the only experience in my life of unconditional love. Artie took shit from nobody. It’s a photo with two things that are important to me: Strength and love. And it’s my family, you know?
Where would you like to live?
Nine months of the year, I like where I am – in what’s left of Greenwich Village. In the summer, I cannot bear being in a city, I have to be in the Catskill Mountains. I think they are the most beautiful place on earth -- at least, the one I can drive to in under three hours.
What is your favorite occupation?
I only know one: Writing. It’s the only thing I can do. Unless they start paying for worrying, in which case I will be able to afford a summer house.
What is your most marked characteristic?
I’m funny.
What do you most value in your friends?
That they value me. And I feel I can be myself with them
Who are your favorite writers?
There are too many to list; I’m astonished by how many wonderful writers there are out there now. I hope they’re managing to eat.
My favorite book is “The Great Gatsby”, which I feel is a perfect novel, and reread it at least once a year. After that, “Bel Ami”, probably because of de Maupassant’s insights into the way people rationalize bad behavior. And a look at a 19th-century Parisian newsroom, which was hilariously corrupt.
Who are your heroes in real life?
My former oncologist, Dr. Larry Norton, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York. He treated me for breast and ovarian cancer when I was in my 40s and diagnosed my ovarian cancer after my gynecologist had missed it. Also, when I’d become terrified I was going to die – because that happens a lot with ovarian cancer – and called his number, he always got back to me, no matter where he was traveling. He made me feel protected. I love Larry.
How would you like to die?
Asleep in bed, with a copy of my best-selling novel on my bedside table, surprising everyone because I am in such excellent shape for a ninety-year-old.
What is your motto?
“Any money not spent on a nursing home is money well spent.”
I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Let me know in the comments! Oh and don’t forget to check out Joyce here 👇
Joyce Wadler is a New York City humorist and journalist who created and wrote the ‘I Was Misinformed’ humor column for The New York Times, where she was a staff reporter for 15 years, and now writes a column on Substack. Before going to the Times Ms. Wadler was a feature writer and crime reporter for newspapers and magazines, as well as an author and screenwriter. She was the New York correspondent for The Washington Post, a contributing editor for New York Magazine and Rolling Stone, a staff writer at People Magazine and The Daily News Magazine and a reporter at Dorothy Schiff’s New York Post.
Her books include ‘My Breast’, her memoir about breast cancer, which she later adapted as a CBS television movie and ‘Liaison’, the story of the French civil servant and the Chinese opera singer which inspired the play ‘M. Butterfly’. The singer Shi Pei Pu, sued to stop publication of the book in France. Some years later, Joyce wrote Pei Pu’s obituary for The New York Times. It was one of her more satisfying assignments.
Her awards include The National Society of Newspaper Columnists First Place Award for Humor; the Society of the Silurians Award for Commentary/ Editorial; The New York Press Club Award for Humor; Columbia University’s Mike Berger Award for feature writing; the Deadline Club Award for Best Feature Reporting in Magazines and The New York Newspaper Publishers Association Award for column writing.
I just subscribed to Joyce’s Substack, based on your interview - nicely done. You should be paid a commission.
This is such a great idea. I love this questionnaire! Look forward to seeing more.