The New York Times called author Judith Thurman’s Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette “a burnished, historically opulent, elegant, distinguished work.” She also won the National Book Award for a biography of Isak Dinesen. Thurman’s latest book is Cleopatra’s Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire, a collection that spans 20 years at The New Yorker. You can meet the accomplished writer when she comes to the Y to kick off this season’s intimate Critics & Brunch series on October 28. First, she gets cozy with a few questions on her life in New York.

How many years, apartments and what neighborhoods have you lived in NYC?
I’m a native. Born at Lenox Hill Hospital. So: Growing up: Jackson Heights; Kew Gardens Hills (not to be confused with the much tonier Kew Gardens); Forest Hills; (all in Queens); then, post college: the Bowery; West 92nd St (with a relative); West 10th Street (bathtub in kitchen); West 84th St (worst crack block in the city), Water Street, (above a bar—no one else lived there in 1969); Sullivan St; Westbeth—artists’ housing, mercifully subsidized, on Bethune Street; Warren Street (in Tribeca, my first “adult” home, a loft bought in late 1979); East 10th Street (a studio on the block of divorcees); East 84th Street, in an old pushcart stable, and now, in a brownstone one block further west. My maternal grandparents immigrated to Yorkville in the late 1880s, and my mother grew up and went to school two blocks from my house.

What’s your best (or worst) NYC taxi story?
Worst: The Pashtun fanatic with the weird smile who picked me up on September 14th or 15th, 2001—whenever cars and taxis could circulate again—and confided that Osama bin Laden was misunderstood. But there was also a completely drugged out maniac, on meth, I presume, who locked me in the cab for a terrifying ride around the Village spewing paranoia, before letting me out where he had picked me up. He didn’t charge me, however. The best cab ride: the driver who picked me up uptown and drove me to Tribeca, and when I discovered I didn’t have my wallet, shrugged and said, “It happens to all of us. This one’s on me.”

What era, day or event in New York ‘s history would you like to relive?
I know it’s heretical, but I really loved the 1977 blackout. I wouldn’t want others to have to relive it, however. I love the silence and the camaraderie of blackouts, though, I do confess. I would have liked to have climbed a tree with my grandfather to watch the Lindbergh parade (though Lindbergh was later such a menace to democracy.) I would have loved to see Manhattan when it was still mostly rural. Or visit Edgar Allen Poe in his cottage in the Bronx.

What’s your New York motto?
Don’t forget recycling day.

Describe that low, low moment when you thought you just might have to leave NYC for good.
It wasn’t New York, it was America: the day after Bush was reelected.

Who do you consider to be the greatest New Yorker of all time?
Does Jane Jacobs qualify? She stopped the destruction of Lower Manhattan.

What was your best dining experience in NYC?
In recent times? Ichimura. But you leave New York when you walk through the door--you’re in Japan. Historically? The first meal I ever had, as a student, in a “real” restaurant. It was called La Cave d’ Henri IV, in the East 50s. I went with some girlfriends from college. I don’t think the food was very good—I certainly couldn’t have judged it—but I had never been any place so sophisticated. I ordered the sole amandine. The lady at the next table was wearing black! And afterwards, my friends and I, a little tipsy (the drinking age was eighteen, then) walked rapturously home through a driving summer rainstorm. But wait: there was also my first real date. We ate at Sloppy Louie’s, or Eddy’s, I can’t remember, in the Fulton Fish Market. There was sawdust on the floor. Very romantic. 

With a nod to Milton Glaser, how much do you really love New York?
Milton is a very good friend, and I would probably love it more if he had gotten some royalties for his logo, even though he never asked for them.

Of all the movies made about or highly associated with New York, what role would you have liked to be cast in?
Countess Olenska.

What happened the last time you went to L.A.?
I stayed in a hip but grungy motel in West Hollywood before moving to a Radisson—I needed wifi—and went to a show of architecture and fashion at MOCA that I was reviewing for the New Yorker. L.A. gets a bum rap from New Yorkers. Lots of people read books there, you know.

If you could change one thing about New York, what would it be?
Summer.

The End of The World is finally happening. What are you going to do with your last 24 hours in NYC?
Reread Flaubert’s The Sentimental Education. No, not really. I wouldn’t tell you, my son might read it. Isn’t that the good thing about apocalypses? Whatever you do, there are no consequences.

[Judith Thurman: 10/28/07]