Janet Flanner

Janet Flanner(March 13, 1892 – November 7, 1978) was an American writer and pioneeringnarrative journalistwho served as the Paris correspondent ofThe New Yorkermagazine from 1925 until she retired in 1975.She wrote under the pen name "Genêt".She also published a single novel,The Cubical City, set in New York City.
She was a prominent member of America's expatriate community living in Paris before WWII. Along with her longtime partnerSolita Solano, Flanner was called "a defining force in the creative expat scene in Paris".She returned to New York during the war. Flanner split her time between there and Paris until her death in 1978.
Janet Flanner was born inIndianapolis,Indiana, toFrankand Mary Ellen Flanner (née Hockett), who wereQuakers.She had two sisters, Marie andHildegarde Flanner. Her father co-owned a mortuary and ran the first crematorium in the state ofIndiana. After a period spent traveling abroad with her family and studies at Tudor Hall School for Girls(nowPark Tudor School), she enrolled in theUniversity of Chicagoin 1912. She left the university in 1914. Two years later, she returned to her native city to take up a post as the first cinema critic on the local paper, theIndianapolis Star.
While in New York, Flanner moved in the circle of theAlgonquin Round Table,but was not a member. She also met the coupleJane GrantandHarold Ross, through painterNeysa McMein. It was based on this connection that Harold Ross offered Flanner the position of French Correspondent toThe New Yorker.
After these early years spent inPennsylvaniaand New York in her mid twenties, Flanner left the United States for Paris.
In September 1925 Flanner published her first "Letter from Paris" inThe New Yorker, which had been launched the previous February. She would be professionally linked with the magazine for the next five decades. Her columns covered a wide range of topics, including artists, performances, and crime, including a lengthy feature on murderessesChristine and Léa Papin. She also published several installments about theStavisky Affair.Flanner was also known for her obituaries—examples include those ofIsadora DuncanandEdith Wharton.
Flanner had first come to the attention of editorHarold Rossthrough his first wife,Jane Grant, who was a friend of Flanner's from theLucy Stone League. This organization fought for women to preserve their maiden names after marriage, in the manner ofLucy Stone. Flanner joined the group in 1921. Ross famously thought Flanner's pen name "Genêt" was French for "Janet".
Flanner wrote one novel,The Cubical City(1926), which achieved little success.
Flanner was a prominent member of the Americanexpatriatecommunity in Paris which includedErnest Hemingway,F. Scott Fitzgerald,John Dos Passos,E. E. Cummings,Hart Crane,Djuna Barnes,Ezra Pound, andGertrude Stein- the world of theLost GenerationandLes Deux Magots. While in Paris she became very close friends withGertrude Steinand her lover,Alice B. Toklas.
She played a crucial role in introducing her contemporaries to new artists in Paris, includingPablo Picasso,Georges Braque,Henri Matisse,André Gide, andJean Cocteau, and theBallets Russesdance company. She also introduced them tocrime passionelandvernissage, the triumphant crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by pilotCharles Lindberghand the depravities of theStavisky Affair.
Her prose style has since come to epitomise the "New Yorkerstyle"—its influence can be seen decades later in the prose ofBruce Chatwin.An example: "The late Jean De Koven was an average American tourist in Paris but for two exceptions: she never set foot in the Opéra, and she was murdered."
HerNew Yorkerwork during World War II included not only her famous "Letter from Paris" columns, but also included a seminal 3-part series in 1936 profilingHitler.
After Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Flanner moved back to New York City,where she lived withNatalia Danesi Murrayand her sonWilliam Murray. She still wrote forThe New Yorker, analyzing radio broadcasts and print reports about life in wartime Paris. She returned to Paris in 1944, contributing a series of  weekly radio broadcasts entitledListen: the Womenfor theBlue Networkduring the months following the liberation of Paris in late August 1944.
Flanner covered theNuremberg trials(1945) forThe New Yorker.
She covered theSuez crisis, the Soviet invasion ofHungary, and the strife inAlgeriawhich helped the rise ofCharles de Gaulle.
In 1948, Flanner was made a knight ofLegion d'Honneur.
In 1958, Flanner was awarded an honorary doctorate bySmith College.
In 1966 she won the U.S.National Book Awardin theArts and Letters categoryfor herParis Journal, 1944–1965.Extracts of herParis Journalwere adapted as a piece for chorus and orchestra by composerNed Rorem.
In 2019,Park Tudor School— the coed successor to the Tudor Hall for Girls (Flanner's alma mater) — posthumously awarded her their prestigious "distinguished alumni award".The school's fine arts department created a speaker series in her name, titled theJanet Flanner Visiting Artist Series.
In 1918, Flanner married William "Lane" Rehm, a friend she had met while at theUniversity of Chicago. He was working as an artist in New York City, and she later admitted that she married him to get out of Indianapolis. The marriage lasted for only a few years and they divorced amicably in 1926. Rehm was supportive of Flanner's career until his death.
In 1918, the same year she married her husband, she metSolita SolanoinGreenwich Village. The two women became lifelong lovers, although both also became involved with other lovers throughout their relationship. Solano was drama editor for theNew-York Tribune, and also wrote forNational Geographic.
In 1932 Flanner fell in love withNoël Haskins Murphy, an American singer who lived in a village just outside Paris. They had a short-lived romance. This did not affect her relationship with Solano.
Flanner lived in Paris with Solano, who put away her own literary aspirations to be Flanner's personal secretary. Although their  relationship was notmonogamous, they lived together for more than 50 years.
Flanner frequently visited Los Angeles, where her mother Mary Flanner lived at 530 East Marigold St. inAltadenawith her sister, poetHildegarde Flanner, and brother-in-law,Frederick Monhoff.
Flanner was achain smoker.
In 1975, she returned to New York City permanently to be cared for byNatalia Danesi Murray. Flanner died on November 7, 1978. She wascremated. Her ashes were scattered along with Murray's overCherry GroveinFire Islandwhere the two women had met in 1940, according toWilliam Murray, Danesi Murray's son, in his bookJanet, My Mother, and Me(2000).