20 Questions: Fran Lebowitz

our most opinionated social critic holds forth on hell, the perfect apartment and sex in its lowest form

Her two widely acclaimed books, "Metropolitan Life" and "Social Studies," plus her frequent television appearances, have established Fran Lebowitz as one of America's most wise-assed humorists. E. Jean Carroll spent several days with her in New York. Carroll told us later, "Fran wanted this to be called '20 Answers.'"

1.

[Q] Playboy: What's the novel you're writing?

[A] Lebowitz: The title is Exterior Signs of Wealth, but I may just call it Art. That's if it comes out the way I want it. If it doesn't, I'm going to call it Craft.

2.

[Q] Playboy: What goes on in hell, Fran? What does it look like?

[A] Lebowitz: Hell looks like the girls' gym at my high school. In hell, I am taking gym, but I also have a book due. That's my idea of hell. I hated gym in high school. We had the standard-model gym teachers: paramilitary. They thought the same thing of my athletic ability as I thought of their literary ability. We had basketball, field hockey, gymnastics, rope climbing--rope climbing I refused. I refused even to attempt it. I said, "I refuse to die before my first book comes out. "And I was terrible in basketball. I was short and white. My grandparents did not come to this country steerage so that I could run around playing basketball. We already got out of the ghetto. We didn't have to continue the process.

So that is the main reason I don't like sports. To me, sports is just gym with different uniforms. It's gym for adults.

3.

[Q] Playboy: How do you know when you are falling in love as opposed to coming down with something?

[A] Lebowitz: There's practically no distinction: You need penicillin for both. The main symptom of falling in love is that you lose your intellectual prowess. That's why there are all those words surrounding lovers--"falling in love," "lovesick," "love crazy." I love being in love. I don't think anything compares with it, though I consider it very disruptive. I am a cheerier person when I'm in love, and I think I'm a good person to be in love with. I'm a very, um, entertaining conversationalist. I'm an excellent present giver. Even if I have no money, I give excellent presents. That means I'm good at borrowing, too. I'm, ah, a very good recipient of gifts. A more frequent recipient. I'm better at receiving. And I smoke, so I have something to do afterward.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Do you go out and buy new underwear when you fall in love?

[A] Lebowitz: I'm not a fanatic.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Are you jealous? What makes you jealous?

[A] Lebowitz: Romantically? I have an average, really average, common amount of sexual jealousy. I don't have an extreme amount, and I'm not that jealous at all. What makes me jealous? The slightest shift in attention.

6.

[Q] Playboy: How do you know when it's over?

[A] Lebowitz: When the phone rings and I don't care who it is.

7.

[Q] Playboy: What are some of the things you like? Let's run down a list.

[A] Lebowitz: OK, magazines: I read the National Enquirer, because I feel that it is the most entertaining and truthful newspaper. I read Forbes magazine, because Malcolm sends it to me and because I used to feel I might learn to be rich from reading it. Then I realized that all the stories of people who are self-made millionaires are the same: Someone borrowed $1500 from his brother-in-law, went into a garage and three months later owned a $40,000,000 computer company. So I realized pretty soon that I was not that type of person. And I read The New Yorker, because I'm a sensualist. I like the paper. Favorite sport: hailing a cab. Favorite TV show: Family Feud. But I like People's Court. In fact, all decisions should be made on People's Court. There should be something called People's Supreme Court. Favorite animal: steak. Favorite sexual experience: a John Leonard review. Everyone has his own idea of sex.

8.

[Q] Playboy: What do you cook for guests?

[A] Lebowitz: I don't have guests. I occasionally suffer the presence of people from out of town. But they do not eat there. I'm not really a gracious hostess. When I cook for myself, I cook baked potatoes. They're very easy to cook. You put them in the oven, and when you smell burning, they're done.

9.

[Q] Playboy: What do you do with lovers who stay overnight?

[A] Lebowitz: One hopes they have to leave early in the morning to go to school.

10.

[Q] Playboy: What qualities should the perfect host have?

[A] Lebowitz: Largess. That's the key quality. A host should always be asking you what you like. The same quality, you know, that a perfect whore has, only with a big house. And every bedroom should have a phone. It's particularly important to have a phone in your bedroom if you're someone's house guest, especially in Europe. I figure if someone can afford a house in Europe, he can afford to have me make phone calls.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Which writers do you admire?

[A] Lebowitz: Well, I prefer dead writers, because I don't see them at parties. Oscar Wilde, he's one of my favorites. I like Hawthorne very much. Enjoy Hawthorne even. Nabokov, Roland Barthes, Jane Austen, Henry James I admire very much. Twain I love. Twain I really love. I know he's very highly regarded, but I don't think he's taken very seriously. He wrote humorous things, and humorous writers are never taken seriously enough. In fact, they are always the most serious writers and the most serious people.

Cheever, John O'Hara--O'Hara is really an underrated American writer. He is a much better writer than Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is a very adolescent book. In fact, I consider that book to be full of the basest sort of longing. And it's a lie. Hemingway I do not like. I'm not interested in that kind of butch statement. Faulkner I have never been able to read. And actually, I consider that a criticism of a writer, because if I can't read him, who can?

12.

[Q] Playboy: What should a woman's quest in life be--to find the perfect man?

[A] Lebowitz: A woman's quest in life should be to find the perfect apartment. And I have found (concluded on page 164)Fran Lebowitz (continued from page 127) the perfect apartment. The perfect apartment is the first floor of the Metropolitan Museum. With a sofa.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Describe your idea of the perfect person to marry.

[A] Lebowitz: A very rich dead man. I don't have any wifely skills. I'm not the helpmate type.I'm not interested in being a wife. I'm interested in being an empress.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Do people get crushes on you?

[A] Lebowitz: Not enough. Some people have them, but usually they're so young I'm not interested. You know, it's really the great trick of life. When people are at their most physically attractive, they're actually at their least sexy. All the pleasures of sex with an adolescent are tactile, but that is not what sex is about to me. Sex is something in your head. It's an attitude. The great pleasures--they're attitudes. Sex itself is a fairly limited act. It's not the thing that really excites people. That's the thing that excites young boys. Other things excite adults.

Knowingness is sexy. The opposite of sexy to me is naïveté. I have no instructive desires. I'm not the kind of person who likes to do her own home repairs. You know, I don't like to assemble things. I like them to come already made.

15.

[Q] Playboy: We understand you're a hypochondriac. How many doctors do you have?

[A] Lebowitz: Well, fewer than lawyers. I imagine whatever disease is around, I have. Even if I read about a disease and it says, "This disease is present only in 70-year-old Asian men, " I feel, Oh! I could be the first white woman to have this disease. Then I go to doctors trying to find one who will tell me, "Yes! You're dying!" It has to be a terminal disease. I'm interested only in terminal illness. I don't fool around.

There are certain ways I think I won't die. Like, I don't think I'm really the type to die in some big accident, like an avalanche. I'm too egomaniacal to die in a mass death. And I won't die in a skiing accident or a camping accident or a plane crash. I'm not that lucky. When I fly, I'm never afraid the plane is going to crash. But there have often been times when I was afraid it wouldn't crash. I was just afraid it was going to circle O'Hare for the rest of my life.

16.

[Q] Playboy: If the best thing you do is write, what is the second-best thing?

[A] Lebowitz: I'm an excellent talker. I've often said that I'd like to have my own talk show--with no guests. I am also an excellent driver. I am a genius at making banana splits. This comes from a combination of natural ability and the fact that I worked at Carvel through high school.

I was also a belt peddler. I was a excellent at that. I was a cabdriver. I was a bartender. And I was a cleaning lady with a small specialty of Venetian blinds.

17.

[Q] Playboy: In which situations in life are you most helpless?

[A] Lebowitz: Physical encounters. I consider myself to be very weak physically. There's no one in the world I wouldn't think could beat me up. I feel for some odd reason that if some gigantic guy were attacking me, I wouldn't be able to repel him with a sarcastic remark.

18.

[Q] Playboy: What qualities do you find insurmountably repulsive in humans?

[A] Lebowitz: I'm really against longing. Sometimes, people are just born out of luck. I admire people's trying to get something that's possible for them to have. I don't admire their wanting things that are impossible or inappropriate for them to have. And I feel I should be in charge of deciding what is appropriate and what is inappropriate.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Describe sex in its lowest form.

[A] Lebowitz: Sex with a model.

20.

[Q] Playboy: When are you at a loss for words?

[A] Lebowitz: When I'm writing.

"I'm not the helpmate type. I'm not interested in being a wife. I'm interested in being an empress."