Julie Hecht

Julie Hecht is a contemporary American fiction writer specializing in interlacing short stories. She is best known for her book Do the Windows Open?,^[1] a series of short stories all of which first appeared independently in The New Yorker. Those stories, Hecht's first novel, The Unprofessionals, and her most recent story collection, Happy Trails to You, feature a female narrator who is a photographer.^[2][3] Hecht is also the author of Was This Man a Genius?: Talks With Andy Kaufman, an extended interview and profile of Andy Kaufman.^[4]

Personal life

According to her publisher's website, Julie Hecht lives in the winter on the east end of Long Island,^[5] New York and spends summer and fall in Massachusetts.^[6] She began writing fiction at age eight. In an interview with Publisher's Weekly, Hecht said that the good reaction she got from her fellow schoolchildren gave her the idea to keep writing. "It's nice to look at a group of people and see them all smiling and laughing," the author told Publisher's Weekly .^[7] The author is somewhat reclusive about publicity. She rarely gives interviews ^[8] and avoids the use of information technology like websites and email. She prefers to write by hand, sitting on a couch, then faxing her work back and forth to a typist for editing multiple drafts.

Critical reception

Hecht’s books have received sensational reviews from Kirkus Review, extremely favorable reviews by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the New Yorker, Time Magazine, Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, the Women's Review of Books, and the Library Journal. Hecht's narrator's obsessive nature has been appreciated by most reviewers, one of whom calls her "beguiling and alienated.^[9]” ^[10]

References