Renata Adler (born October 19, 1938) is an American author, journalist, and film critic. Adler was a staff writer-reporter for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', and in 1968–69, she served as chief

film critic Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outl ...

for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. She is also a writer of fiction.

Early life

Adler was born in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, Italy, to Frederick L. and Erna Adler while they were traveling from Germany to the United States. She has two older brothers. Her family had fled

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in 1933 and moved to the U.S. in 1939. She grew up in

Danbury, Connecticut Danbury is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately northeast of New York City. Danbury's population as of 2022 was 87,642. It is the seventh largest city in Connecticut. Danbury is nicknamed the "Hat City ...

. After earning her

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

('' summa cum laude'') in

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

and

German literature German literature () comprises those literature, literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy a ...

from

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United ...

, where she studied under

José Ferrater Mora José María Ferrater Mora ( ca, Josep Ferrater i Mora; 30 October 1912 – 30 January 1991) was a Spain, Spanish philosopher, essayist and writer. He is considered the most prominent Catalan philosopher of the 20th-century and was the author ...

, Adler studied for an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

under I. A. Richards and

Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18,structuralism at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

under the tutelage of

Jean Wahl Jean André Wahl (; 25 May 188819 June 1974) was a French philosopher. Early career Wahl was educated at the École Normale Supérieure. He was a professor at the Sorbonne from 1936 to 1967, broken by World War II. He was in the U.S. from 1942 ...

and

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social An ...

, and later received a J.D. from

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...

and an honorary doctorate of laws from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

Career

Journalism

In 1962, Adler became a staff writer-reporter for ''

''. In 1968, despite not being involved in the film trade, she succeeded

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

for ''

.'' Her esoteric, literary reviews were not well received by film studio distributors. She was not happy with the ''Times''s deadlines and in February 1969, she was replaced by

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

. Her film reviews were collected in her book, ''A Year in the Dark''. During her time at the ''Times'' she retained her office at ''The New Yorker'' and she rejoined the staff there after leaving the ''Times'', remaining for four decades. Her reporting and essays for ''The New Yorker'' on politics, war, and civil rights were reprinted in ''Toward a Radical Middle''. Her introduction to that volume provided an early definition of

radical centrism Radical centrism (also called the radical center, the radical centre or the radical middle) is a concept that arose in Western nations in the late 20th century. The '' radical'' in the term refers to a willingness on the part of most radical ce ...

as a political philosophy. Her "Letter from the Palmer House" was included in the collection ''The Best Magazine Articles of the Seventies''. In 1980, upon the publication of her ''New Yorker'' colleague

Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...

's collection ''When the Lights Go Down'', she published an 8,000-word review in ''The New York Review of Books'' that dismissed the book as "jarringly, piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless", arguing that Kael's post-1960s work contained "nothing certainly of intelligence or sensibility", and faulting her "quirks ndmannerisms", including Kael's repeated use of the "bullying" imperative and rhetorical question. Adler's motivations were considered to be either wanting to "uphold The New Yorker's usually high standards" or stemming from "personal differences with Kael". The piece, which stunned Kael and quickly became infamous in literary circles, was described by ''Time'' magazine as "the New York literary Mafia sbloodiest case of assault and battery in years." ''New Yorker'' editor

William Shawn William Shawn ('' né'' Chon; August 31, 1907 – December 8, 1992) was an American magazine editor who edited ''The New Yorker'' from 1952 until 1987. Early life and education Shawn was born William Chon on August 31, 1907, in Chicago, Illino ...

called Adler's attack "unfortunate" and mentioned his admiration for Kael, saying that her "work is its own defense";

David Denby David Denby (born 1943) is an American journalist. He served as film critic for ''The New Yorker'' until December 2014. Early life and education Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B. A. from Columbia University in 1965, and a master' ...

, of New York magazine, wrote that Adler "had an old-fashioned notion of prose". Kael's own response was indifferent: "I'm sorry that Ms. Adler doesn't respond to my writing. What else can I say?" In 1998, Renata wrote a long essay about the Starr Report (issued by

Independent Counsel The Office of Special Counsel was an office of the United States Department of Justice established by provisions in the Ethics in Government Act that expired in 1999. The provisions were replaced by Department of Justice regulation 28 CFR Part ...

Ken Starr about his investigation of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

) for '' ''Vanity Fair'''' magazine. The Starr Report led to Clinton's impeachment; Adler argued that it contained evidence of Starr's abuse of power in his pursuit of Clinton. She called the Starr Report "an utterly preposterous document: inaccurate, mindless, biased, disorganized, unprofessional, and corrupt. What it is textually is a voluminous work of demented pornography, with many fascinating characters and several largely hidden story lines. What it is politically is an attempt, through its own limitless preoccupation with sexual material, to set aside, even obliterate, the relatively dull requirements of real evidence and constitutional procedure." In 2001, reflecting on her years in journalism, Adler said, "''The New York Times'' was pretty good, although there were always limits on what it could do culturally. But they were so aware of their power that the question of what was honorable was very important to the editors of that time. I have the impression it does not arise any longer at ''The New Yorker'' or at ''The New York Times''." Adler taught for three years in both the University Professors Honors Program and the Journalism Department of

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

. She also held Trumbull and Branford Fellowships at Yale, and visiting fellowships at the Hoover Institute of Stanford University.

Books

Fiction

In 1974, Adler's short story "Brownstone" won first prize in the O. Henry Awards. She has published two novels, '' Speedboat'' (1976) and '' Pitch Dark'' (1983). In 2010, members of the National Book Critics Circle called for ''Speedboat'' to be returned to print, and it was republished by

New York Review Books New York Review Books (NYRB) is the publishing division of ''The New York Review of Books''. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, The New York Review Children's Collection, New York Review Comics, Ne ...

in 2013, along with ''Pitch Dark''. Both were greeted with new critical acclaim.

Non-fiction

Adler's book, ''Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v.

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

et al.,

Sharon Sharon ( he, שָׁרוֹן ''Šārôn'' "plain") is a given name as well as an Israeli surname. In English-speaking areas, Sharon is now predominantly a feminine given name. However, historically it was also used as a masculine given name. In I ...

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' (1986), an account of two libel trials and the First Amendment, was also praised: "This book should be under the Christmas tree of every lawyer and journalist", wrote William B. Shannon in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. The journalist Edwin M. Yoder wrote, also in the ''Post'', "''Reckless Disregard'' is the best book about American journalism of our time." Her book ''Gone: The Last Days of'' The New Yorker (1999) described what she saw as the magazine's decline in the 1980s and 1990s. ''The New York Times'' called it an "irritable little book" and criticized Adler for claiming that famed Watergate judge

John Sirica John Joseph Sirica (March 19, 1904 – August 14, 1992) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where he became famous for his role in the trials stemming from the Watergate scandal. ...

was a "corrupt, incompetent, and dishonest figure, with a close connection to Senator Joseph McCarthy and clear ties to organized crime", without offering any proof. Adler rebutted this accusation in a detailed article, "A Court of No Appeal", published in '' Harper's'' in August 2000. In 2001, Adler published ''Canaries in the Mineshaft: Essays on Politics and the Media'', a collection of pieces from ''The New Yorker'', the ''

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

'', ''Harper's'', ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...

'', ''

The Los Angeles Times ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'', ''Vanity Fair'', and ''The New York Review of Books''. Some of these, on Kael, the

National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...

Biafra Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a partially recognised secessionist state in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 until 1970. Its territory consisted of the predominantly Igbo-populated form ...

, soap operas,

impeachment Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In ...

inquiries (of both

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

and

), and the press, had received awards. In 2008, Adler contributed an essay to the Corcoran Gallery of Art exhibition catalog ''Richard Avedon: Portraits of Power''. Her introduction, a memoir of her close friendship and work with Avedon, includes details of her work as editor of his photo-essay for ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, "The Family" (1976). In 2015, New York Review Classics published a collection of Adler's essays and reporting pieces as ''After the Tall Timber: Collected Non-Fiction''. In 2015, James Parker wrote in ''The Atlantic'' that Adler, "possessed a set of literary instincts not quite as canine as, say, Hunter S. Thompson’s—they lacked his snarl and drool, his hallucinatory hackles—but no less acute or telepathic, and in the end rather more dangerous."

Honors

In 1968, Adler's essay "Letter from the Palmer House", which appeared in ''The New Yorker'', was included in ''The Best Magazine Articles of 1967''. In 1975, Adler's short story "Brownstone" received first prize in the O. Henry Awards Best Short Stories of 1974. The same story was selected for the O. Henry Collection Best Short Stories of the Seventies. Adler's novel ''Speedboat'' won the

Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award The PEN/Hemingway Award is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingwa ...

, an annual award to recognize a distinguished achievement in debut fiction. In 1987, she was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

, and in 1989 she received an honorary doctorate from the Georgetown University School of Law. In 2021, Adler received an honorary doctorate from

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

. Her "Letter from Selma", originally published in the ''New Yorker'' in 1965, was included in the

Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rang ...

compendium ''Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism 1963–1973'' (2003), and an essay from her tenure as film critic of ''The New York Times'', on ''

In Cold Blood ''In Cold Blood'' is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966. It details the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas. Capote learned of the qua ...

,'' is included in the Library of America compendium ''American Movie Critics: An Anthology From the Silents Until Now''. In 2004, Adler served as a media fellow at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, an ...

. In 2005, she became a Branford fellow at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

; she had been a Trumbull fellow at Yale from 1967 to 1979.Renata Adler
NNDB: Retrieved March 21, 2008.

Personal life

Adler has one son, Stephen, whom she adopted as an infant in 1986. , she lives in Newtown, Connecticut.

Bibliography

Fiction * * Nonfiction * * * * * * *

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Adler, Renata 1938 births 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers American film critics American people of German descent American women critics American women non-fiction writers American women novelists Bryn Mawr College alumni Critics employed by The New York Times Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award winners Living people Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters O. Henry Award winners People from Danbury, Connecticut People from Newtown, Connecticut Radical centrist writers The New Yorker staff writers American women film critics Writers from Connecticut Yale Law School alumni