Lucy Sante

Last updated

Lucy Sante
BornLuc Sante
(1954-05-25) May 25, 1954 (age 69)
Verviers, Belgium
OccupationWriter, critic, artist
Education Columbia University
Notable awards Grammy Award for Best Album Notes (1998)
Guggenheim Fellowship (1992)
Whiting Award (1989)

Lucy Sante (formerly Luc Sante; born May 25, 1954) is a Belgian-born American writer, critic, and artist. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books . Her books include Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991).

Contents

Biography

Born in Verviers, Belgium, Sante migrated to the United States in the early 1960s. She attended school in New York City, first at Regis High School in Manhattan and later at Columbia University from 1972 to 1976; [1] due to several incompletes and outstanding library fines, she did not take a degree. Since 1984 she has been a full-time writer. Sante worked in the mailroom and then as assistant to editor Barbara Epstein at The New York Review of Books . She became a regular contributor there, writing about film, art, photography, and miscellaneous cultural phenomena, as well as book reviews. [2] [3]

Her books, include Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991), a non-fiction book documenting the life and politics of lower Manhattan from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century; [4] [5] [6] Evidence (1992), [6] the autobiographical The Factory of Facts (1998), Walker Evans (1999), Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005 (2007), Folk Photography (2009), and The Other Paris (2015). She co-edited, with writer [7] Melissa Holbrook Pierson, O. K. You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors (1998); Pierson was her former wife. Sante translated and edited Félix Fénéon's Novels in Three Lines (2007) for the New York Review Books (NYRB) series.

In the early 1980s, she wrote lyrics for the New York City-based band The Del-Byzanteens. [8] Sante wrote the text for Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography, a collection of historical photos of American baptismal rites, published by Dust-to-Digital in 2009. [9]

She taught in the Columbia MFA writing program. Sante now lives in Ulster County, New York, and teaches writing and the history of photography at Bard College.

Personal life

She lived as a man until announcing on September 20, 2021, that she was transitioning to being a woman. She wrote on her Instagram account: "Yes, this is me, and yes, I am transitioning–I have joined the other team. Yes, I've known since at least age 11 but probably earlier and yes, I suppressed and denied it for decades.... I started...hormone replacement therapy in early May....You can call me Lucy (but I won't freak out if you misgender me) and my pronoun, thankyouverymuch, is she." [10] In February 2022 she wrote an essay in the magazine Vanity Fair explaining her transition at almost 70 years old. [11] Her 2024 memoir, I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition , follows her process of coming out. [12]

Sante has been married twice, and has one son. [12]

Publications

Original text

Editor

Translator

Exhibitions

Awards and honors

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Liu</span> American actress (born 1968)

Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress. Born in New York City to Chinese immigrant parents, she has starred in the television series Ally McBeal (1998–2002), in two Charlie's Angels films, and in the crime-drama series Elementary (2012–2019), as well as in films Payback (1999), Shanghai Noon (2000), Chicago (2002), Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Watching the Detectives (2007), The Man with the Iron Fists (2012), and Set It Up (2018).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothea Lange</span> American photojournalist (1895–1965)

Dorothea Lange was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange's photographs influenced the development of documentary photography and humanized the consequences of the Great Depression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vivian Vance</span> American actress (1909–1979)

Vivian Vance was an American actress best known for playing Ethel Mertz on the sitcom I Love Lucy (1951–1957), for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress, among other accolades. She also starred alongside Lucille Ball in The Lucy Show from 1962 until she left the series at the end of its third season in 1965. In 1991, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She is most commonly identified as Lucille Ball’s longtime comedic foil from 1951 until her death in 1979.

Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer best known for his books detailing crime during the 19th and early-20th centuries, such as Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld, The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld, Sucker's Progress: An Informal History of Gambling in America and The Gangs of New York.

The Hudson Dusters was a New York City street gang during the early twentieth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melissa Holbrook Pierson</span>

Melissa Holbrook Pierson is a writer and essayist of non-fiction.

A low-life is a term for a person who is considered morally unacceptable by their community. Examples of people society often labels low-lives include aggressive panhandlers, bullies, criminals, drug dealers, freeloaders, hobos, gangsters, people who make constant use of profanities, prostitutes, pimps, scammers, sexual abusers and thieves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ludlow Street Jail</span> Former prison in New York City

The Ludlow Street Jail was New York City's Federal prison, located on Ludlow Street and Broome Street in Manhattan. Some prisoners, such as soldiers, were held there temporarily awaiting extradition to other jurisdictions, but most of the inmates were debtors imprisoned by their creditors. Seward Park Campus now sits on the site of the jail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Strout</span> American writer

Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author. She is widely known for her works in literary fiction and her descriptive characterization. She was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and her experiences in her youth served as inspiration for her novels–the fictional "Shirley Falls, Maine" is the setting of four of her nine novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamela Paul</span> American journalist (born 1970s)

Pamela Paul is an American journalist, correspondent, editor, and author. Since 2022, she has been a columnist for The New York Times. From 2013 to 2022, she was the editor of The New York Times Book Review, where her role expanded to oversee all New York Times book coverage including the staff critics and publishing news.

The Rhodes Gang was an American street gang based in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. The group was one of several smaller Hell's Kitchen gangs affiliated with the Gopher Gang, all of whom were almost constantly fighting among each other, among these including The Gorillas and the Parlor Mob. They were known, at times, to briefly put aside their differences when police attempted to interfere in gang fights and authorities found the area impossible to control.

The Hole-in-the-Wall was a popular saloon and underworld hangout in what is now the South Street Seaport, Manhattan, New York City during the early- to mid-19th century. It has been described as the "most notorious" saloon in New York city during the 19th century. It was one of many dive bars and similar establishments in New York's infamous Fourth Ward, located at the corner of Water and Dover Streets. The saloon was owned by "One Armed" Charley Monell and featured notorious female criminals Kate Flannery and Gallus Mag as bouncers. Both women were employed by Monell as lieutenants in his local criminal organization, which included shanghaiing, and the latter woman supposedly kept a collection of human ears which she had bitten off from unruly customers in bar brawls. She displayed these as trophies on the bar in pickle jars. Sadie the Goat, the later leader of the Charlton Street Gang, was of the many victims who lost her ear in a brawl with Gallus Mag.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ricky Powell</span> American photographer (1961–2021)

Ricky Powell was an American photographer who documented popular culture including hip hop, punk rock, graffiti, and pop art. His photographs have been featured in The New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News, The Village Voice, TIME, Newsweek, VIBE, The Source, Rolling Stone, among other publications. His photographs included candid portraits of artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Madonna, in addition to many other popular culture artists and other common people. His photographs were included in the books The Rap Photography of Ricky Powell! (1998), The Rickford Files: Classic New York Photographs (2000), Frozade Moments: Classic Street Photography of Ricky Powell (2004), and Public Access: Ricky Powell Photographs (2005) and were exhibited both domestically and internationally.

Red Light Lizzie was the pseudonym of an American madam, procuress and underworld figure in New York City during the mid-to late 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Linderman</span>

Jim Linderman is an American popular culture writer, collector and visual artist. Linderman has written a number of books, some self-published, has written articles for collecting magazines. He maintains three personal blogs on the subject of little-known artists and art, based on material from his collections of vintage photographs and ephemera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Spraggan</span> English singer-songwriter (born 1991)

Lucy Honour Ruby Spraggan is an English singer-songwriter. Spraggan was a contestant on for The X Factor in 2012, and she was the first contestant in the show's history to score a Top 40 single and album before the live shows aired, with her independently released album Top Room at the Zoo. Following the show Spraggan signed a recording contract with Columbia Records, and she has released seven studio albums in total.

<i>Immediate Family</i> (book) Sally Mann photographs her children

Immediate Family is a 1992 photography book by Sally Mann. Images from the book were first exhibited in 1990 by Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York City. The book is published by Aperture and contains 65 duotone images. The book predominately features Mann's three children, Emmett, Jessie and Virginia, when all were under 10 years old. Thirteen of the pictures show nudity and three show minor injuries; Emmett with a nosebleed, Jessie with a cut and stitches, and Jessie with a swollen eye from an insect bite. Many explore typical childhood activities at the family's remote summer cabin along the Maury River but others touch on darker themes such as insecurity, loneliness, injury, sexuality and death. Several images from the book were re-published in Mann's next book, Still Time.

Esther Morgan McCullough was an American novelist and anthologist.

Andrea Long Chu is an American writer and critic. Chu has written for such publications as n+1 and The New York Times, and various academic journals including Differences, Women & Performance, and Transgender Studies Quarterly. Chu's first book, Females, was published in 2019 by Verso Books and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. In 2021, she joined the staff at New York magazine as a book critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Luc Brunel</span> French model scout (1946–2022)

Jean-Luc Didier Henri Brunel was a French model scout. He gained prominence by leading the international modelling agency Karin Models, and founded MC2 Model Management, with financing by Jeffrey Epstein. The subject of a 60 Minutes investigation in 1988, Brunel faced allegations of sexual assault spanning three decades.

References

  1. "Phil Kline '75 | Columbia College Today". www.college.columbia.edu. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  2. "New York Review of Books". August 10, 2006.
  3. O'Kelly, Lisa (March 9, 2024). "'This secret that crippled me for 50 years has been lifted': Lucy Sante on becoming a trans woman at 67". The Guardian . Retrieved March 9, 2024.
  4. "Down and Dirty : LOW LIFE: Lures and Snares of Old New York, By Luc Sante (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $27.50; 414 pp., illustrated)". Los Angeles Times. September 29, 1991. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  5. Rubin, Hanna (September 29, 1991). "New York Seedy". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  6. 1 2 Schoemer, Karen (February 21, 1993). "Lowlife: It's a Life". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  7. "Contemporary Authors Online". Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale. 2009.
  8. Kellman, Andy (n.d.) The Del-Byzantines, Allmusic.com, retrieved April 9, 2014
  9. "Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography". Dust-to-Digital. April 26, 2009. Archived from the original on March 2, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  10. Sante, Lucy [@luxante] (September 19, 2021). "I have been shilly-shallying about this long enough" . Retrieved September 22, 2021 via Instagram.
  11. "On Becoming Lucy Sante". Vanity Fair. January 20, 2022. Retrieved May 2, 2022.
  12. 1 2 3 Garner, Dwight (February 3, 2024). "What It's Like to Transition in Your Late 60s". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved February 27, 2024.
  13. Di Piero, W.S. (March 8, 1998). "In the Flea Market of the Mind". New York Times. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  14. Sante, Luc. "The Factory of Facts: Chapter One". New York Times. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  15. "The Unknown Soldier". This American Life . Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  16. Garner, Dwight (January 15, 2010). "The Reading Life: Postcards From the Edge". New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  17. Haskell, Molly (October 30, 2015). "'The Other Paris', by Luc Sante". New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  18. Garner, Dwight (August 8, 2022). "How New York City Got Its Fresh Water". The New York Times.
  19. "A gender-swapping photo app helped Lucy Sante come out as trans at age 67". National Public Radio. February 21, 2024.
  20. Swanson, Carl (February 9, 2024). "Lucy Sante: Here She Comes Now". Vulture. Retrieved February 27, 2024.
  21. Johnson, Marilyn (September 2, 2007). "Haiku Journalism". New York Times. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  22. Steinhauer, Jillian; Heinrich, Will; Schwendener, Martha (August 19, 2020). "3 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved August 20, 2020.
  23. "Luc Sante, 1989 Winner in Nonfiction". Whiting Foundation. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  24. "Luc Sante". John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  25. "Award Winner: Luc Sante". American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  26. "Grammy winners, Anthology of American Folk Music". Grammy. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  27. "2010 Infinity Award: Writing". International Center of Photography. February 23, 2016. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  28. "The New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Announces 2012-2013 Fellows". NYPL. Retrieved November 28, 2023.