Literary essay: The death of a New Yorker essayist
By MICHAEL STANFIELD | The Associated PressAUGUSTA, Ga.
— A literary essayist who wrote a critical essay about President Donald Trump on a popular magazine’s website has died, the New Yorker said Saturday.
Gretchen Schmid’s death was confirmed by the New York Times on Saturday.
She was 85.
The Times said she died Saturday night in her New York City home after a lengthy illness.
Her name was not immediately known.
Her article, titled “Trump, Not a Threat,” was published by the magazine on Dec. 19.
The essay said Trump is not a threat and that he has never threatened anyone in his life.
It said he never threatened the U.S. government.
Schmid was a frequent contributor to the magazine since 1980 and was a columnist for the magazine from 1993 to 2007.
She won the Pulitzer Prize for her work.
She was the author of several books, including “The Life and Death of the Nation,” and she wrote a collection of essays, “An American Dream: A New Yorker Essay.”
She was also the author, with her husband, of a memoir titled “Uncle Joe’s Country,” which was published in 2012.
Schlow, who died of complications from pancreatic cancer in August, wrote that Trump was a “self-proclaimed, real-life version of his father, who has never really lived up to the ideals his father set for him.”
“If you look at his whole life, he has lived a very narcissistic and self-centered life,” Schlow wrote.
“He thinks that he’s above everyone else, and if you don’t look at him, he will not take responsibility for his actions.
He doesn’t have any empathy.
He does not have any concern for others.
And yet he has taken the moral high ground.”
Schlow’s son, Daniel Schlow, told the Times that he didn’t believe the piece had any political or social value.