American journalism icon, lecturer and four-time NYT bestselling author Gail Sheehy died this week at the age of 83. Known for her landmark book Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life (1976), which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for three years and was named “one of the ten most influential books of our time” by the Library of Congress, she published a total of seventeen books and had been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair since 1984.
The pop sociologist graduated from the University of Vermont with a degree in English and studied under pioneering anthropologist Margaret Mead — a mentor that impacted Sheehy’s research methods — while pursuing her master’s degree at Columbia University.
Throughout her career, Sheehy profiled “a wide range of subjects, from her iconic look at Hillary Clinton in 1992 to her search for Mikhail Gorbachev as the Soviet Union dissolved,” said Vanity Fair. She was an original contributor for New York magazine and her journalism has appeared in publications such as Esquire, The Daily Beast, Jezebel and Refinery29 among others.
Another of her notable works was a sensational 1972 article for New York magazine titled “The Secret of Grey Gardens” in which she wrote about the bohemian lives of Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis’s relatives Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter “Little Edie” — an article that led the former first lady to fund repairs at the East Hampton home.
Her work was recognized for lifetime achievement by organizations such as Books for a Better Life (2013) and East Hampton’s Guild Hall (2017). She was a seven-time recipient of the New York Newswomen’s Club Front Page Award for Distinguished Journalism, a three-time winner or finalist for National Magazine Awards and received two honorary doctorates along with a presidential citation from the American Psychological Association.
When she wasn’t writing, Sheehy hosted the Kid Rebels podcast, which explored the emotional impact of school shootings on traumatized teenagers, spoke on topics relating to women and leadership, and lent her expertise to various projects including the 2017 bestselling book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.
According to The New York Times, Sheehy “had been working on a book about the Millennial generation” at the time of her death. You can preview those interviews on her website’s “Meet the Millennials” page.
