Norah Vincent
Norah Vincent | |
---|---|
Born | Detroit, Michigan, U.S. | September 20, 1968
Died | July 6, 2022 Switzerland | (aged 53)
Occupation | Journalist |
Alma mater | Williams College |
Notable works | Self-Made Man |
Spouse |
Kristen Erickson (divorced) |
Norah Mary Vincent (September 20, 1968 – July 6, 2022) was an American writer. She was a weekly columnist for the
Early life
Norah Mary Vincent was born in
Career
Self-Made Man
Vincent's book
Vincent wrote that the only time she has ever been considered excessively feminine was during her stint as a man. Her alter ego, Ned, was assumed to be gay on several occasions. Features which had been perceived as butch when she presented as a woman were perceived as oddly effeminate when she presented as a man. Vincent asserted that, since the experiment, she had more fully realized the benefits of being female and the disadvantages of being male, stating, "I really like being a woman. ... I like it more now because I think it's more of a privilege."[5]
Vincent also stated that she had gained more sympathy and understanding for men and the male condition: "Men are suffering. They have different problems than women have but they don't have it better. They need our sympathy, they need our love, and they need each other more than anything else. They need to be together."[5]
Voluntary Madness
Vincent's book Voluntary Madness (2008) relates her experiences as an inpatient in three institutions for mentally ill patients: "a ward in a public city hospital, a private Midwestern institution, and a pricey New Age clinic."[8] She criticized doctors who she claimed were unapproachable, noting that too many relied on drugs as therapy, while others addressed only symptoms instead of their underlying causes.[9]
Vincent's book also addresses the question of
Later work
Vincent later wrote two novels: Thy Neighbor (2012), described by The New York Times as "a dark, comic thriller", and Adeline (2015), which imagines the life of Virginia Woolf from when she wrote To the Lighthouse until Woolf's suicide in 1941.[3]
Personal life, views, and death
Vincent, a lesbian, was briefly married to Kristen Erickson, but soon divorced.[3]
Vincent was described as a libertarian who was critical of postmodernism and multiculturalism.[3] She did not believe that transgender people were the sex they identified as, leading her to be accused of bigotry.[3] In an article for The Village Voice, she wrote: "[Transsexuality] signifies the death of the self, the soul, that good old-fashioned indubitable 'I' so beloved of Descartes, whose great adage 'I think, therefore I am' has become an ontological joke on the order of 'I tinker, and there I am.'"[11]
In Voluntary Madness, Vincent details her decade-long history with treatment-resistant depression, saying: "...my brain was never quite the same after I zapped it with that first course of SSRIs."[12] Due to her experience as a man during the making of Self-Made Man she ultimately had a depressive breakdown, leading Vincent to admit herself to a locked psychiatric facility.[13][14]
Vincent died via assisted suicide at a clinic in Switzerland on July 6, 2022, aged 53. Her death was not reported until August 2022.[3]
Publications
- Self-Made Man (Viking Adult, 2006)[2][15]
- Voluntary Madness (Viking Adult, 2008)[3]
- Thy Neighbor (Viking Adult, 2012)[3]
- Adeline: A Novel of Virginia Woolf (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015)[3]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Grigoriadis, Vanessa (January 23, 2009). "Checking In". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 1, 2015. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
- ^ a b c "Nora Vincent". Lyceum Agency. Archived from the original on April 10, 2015. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
- ^ from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
- ^ "Double agent". The Guardian. London. March 18, 2006. Archived from the original on August 30, 2013. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
- ^ a b c d "A self-made man. Woman goes undercover to experience life as a man". 20/20. ABC news. January 20, 2006. Archived from the original on October 8, 2007. Retrieved November 7, 2007.
- ISBN 978-1-4295-2028-7. Retrieved December 11, 2013.
- ^ "Guardian Book Extracts "Double Agent"". Book Extracts. London: The Guardian. March 18, 2006. Archived from the original on January 20, 2008. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
- ^ Ward, Kate (December 10, 2008). "Voluntary Madness". EW.com. Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on November 24, 2020. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
- ^ "Voluntary Madness Reader's Guide". Penguin Random House Publishers' Homepage. Archived from the original on August 22, 2022. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
- ^ "'Voluntary Madness' Details Life In 'Loony Bin'". NPR. January 5, 2009. Archived from the original on August 19, 2022. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
- ^ Vincent, Norah (May 22, 2001). "Welcome to the Transsexual Age". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on August 19, 2022. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
- ISBN 978-1-440-64103-9.
- ISBN 978-1-440-64103-9.
- ^ Conan, Neal (January 25, 2006). "Norah Vincent: The Woman Behind 'Self-Made Man'" (Radio Broadcast Transcript). NPR. Retrieved December 26, 2022.
- ^ "Homepage". Nora Vincent. Archived from the original on May 25, 2015. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
External links
- Village Voice articles Archived November 11, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- Tony Dokoupil: Ann Marlowe, the Memoir, and the Self-Made Man in New Partisan
- ABC News 20/20 Program Segment