Williams’ husband, Timothy Noah, collected some of her best writing into a book published last year.
Event: Olsson’s Celebration of Marjorie Williams
Where: Olsson’s Books and Records, Dupont Circle
Nearly two years after her death from liver cancer, Marjorie Williams’ place in Washington journalism hasn’t been filled. It won’t be.
At a reading on Tuesday night hosted by her husband Tim Noah, a writer for Slate who compiled his wife’s work after her death into the book The Woman at the Washington Zoo, it was easy to see why.
From her piercing yet utterly human political profiles such as the one of Barbara Bush published in Vanity Fair in 1992 to the personal essays from the op-ed page of the Post such as “Entomophobia” in which she grappled with motherhood and mortality, Williams was that rare writer who with a reporter’s curiosity, a psychologist's analysis, a mother’s mix of expectation and empathy, and a novelist’s flare pushed open the big closed doors of her city—our city—and the deepest doors of herself, and let us inside.
For this reason she was feared by the powerful, whose political pomp and polish she pierced through in piece after piece. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland who enthusiastically read the Bush profile Tuesday night, said, “I often told Marjorie that I was glad we were friends because that meant she couldn’t write about me.”
But she was also loved by the people, who read and re-read her Post columns.
The writing that she left behind continues to be a guidebook to Washington in the 1990s, and the memoir, “Struck by Lightning,” which her colleague at the Post Liz Kastor read from Tuesday, should be, perhaps more so than any other medical account, required reading for doctors about how to and how not to treat patients.
Two years later, without her words, Washington feels too weighty, stagnant, closed. Tuesday night at Olsson’s, for an hour and a half, the door once again cracked open.
Marjorie Williams Honored at Olsson’s
The former Vanity Fair writer and one of Washington's sharpest tongues was memorialized by her friends and family.
Event: Olsson’s Celebration of Marjorie Williams
Where: Olsson’s Books and Records, Dupont Circle
Nearly two years after her death from liver cancer, Marjorie Williams’ place in Washington journalism hasn’t been filled. It won’t be.
At a reading on Tuesday night hosted by her husband Tim Noah, a writer for Slate who compiled his wife’s work after her death into the book The Woman at the Washington Zoo, it was easy to see why.
From her piercing yet utterly human political profiles such as the one of Barbara Bush published in Vanity Fair in 1992 to the personal essays from the op-ed page of the Post such as “Entomophobia” in which she grappled with motherhood and mortality, Williams was that rare writer who with a reporter’s curiosity, a psychologist's analysis, a mother’s mix of expectation and empathy, and a novelist’s flare pushed open the big closed doors of her city—our city—and the deepest doors of herself, and let us inside.
For this reason she was feared by the powerful, whose political pomp and polish she pierced through in piece after piece. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland who enthusiastically read the Bush profile Tuesday night, said, “I often told Marjorie that I was glad we were friends because that meant she couldn’t write about me.”
But she was also loved by the people, who read and re-read her Post columns.
The writing that she left behind continues to be a guidebook to Washington in the 1990s, and the memoir, “Struck by Lightning,” which her colleague at the Post Liz Kastor read from Tuesday, should be, perhaps more so than any other medical account, required reading for doctors about how to and how not to treat patients.
Two years later, without her words, Washington feels too weighty, stagnant, closed. Tuesday night at Olsson’s, for an hour and a half, the door once again cracked open.
Most Popular in News & Politics
The Missing Men of Mount Pleasant
Another Mysterious Anti-Trump Statue Has Appeared on the National Mall
Muriel Bowser Defends Her BLM Plaza Decision and Looks Back on a Decade as Mayor
Yet Another Anti-Trump Statue Has Shown Up on the National Mall
Want to Search Donald Trump’s Truth Social Posts? A New Site Is Here to Help.
Washingtonian Magazine
July Issue: The "Best Of" Issue
View IssueSubscribe
Follow Us on Social
Follow Us on Social
Related
How Would a New DC Stadium Compare to the Last One?
The Culture of Lacrosse Is More Complex Than People Think
Did Television Begin in Dupont Circle?
Kings Dominion’s Wild New Coaster Takes Flight in Virginia
More from News & Politics
AC Problem Closes Four Smithsonian Museums on the National Mall
Epstein Files Fiasco Continues to Be Weird and Entertaining, GOP Congressman Sued Over Unpaid Rent, and Lotuses Hit Peak Bloom
I Tried to Train for American Ninja Warrior
Trump Wants to Rename Soccer, the Nationals Chose a Shortstop, and Virginians Are the US French-Fry-Eating Champions
Guest List: 5 People We’d Love to Hang Out With This July
The Washington Nationals Just Fired the Manager and GM Who Led Them to a Championship. Why Has the Team Been so Bad Since?
FBI Building Now on Track to Leave DC After All, Whistleblower Leaks Texts Suggesting Justice Department Planned to Blow Off Federal Court Orders, and NPS Cuts Leave Assateague Island Without Lifeguards
Families of DC Air Disaster Victims Criticize Army’s Response, Trump Settles His Scores Via Tariff, and Police Dog Kicked at Dulles Returns to Work