Patricia Marx

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Patricia Marx – Life, Career, and Humorous Voice

Patricia Marx is an American humorist, novelist, and longtime writer for The New Yorker. She was the first woman elected to the Harvard Lampoon and has taught writing, published novels, essays, children’s books, and more. Explore her life, works, and style.

Introduction

Patricia Marx is an American humorist, novelist, and essayist whose wit, observational voice, and literary versatility have earned her a distinctive place in contemporary letters. As a longtime New Yorker writer, a former writer for Saturday Night Live, and one of the first women elected to the Harvard Lampoon, she bridges the worlds of humor, fiction, and cultural commentary.

Her writing—ranging across novels, humor collections, children’s books, and essays—often centers on relationships, domestic life, and the small absurdities of modern living. In addition, she has taught humor writing and screenwriting at major universities, shaping new voices in the genre.

Early Life & Education

Patricia Marx was born in Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. B.A. from Harvard University in 1975.

In a notable milestone, she was one of the first women elected to the Harvard Lampoon, a famed humor magazine traditionally dominated by men.

Her early formation in humor and satire at Harvard helped shape her future voice and career path in comedic writing.

Career & Major Works

The New Yorker & Journalism

Patricia Marx has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1989.

Her byline has also appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, The Atlantic Monthly, and other major publications.

Television & Early Writing

Marx has worked in television writing: she was a writer for Saturday Night Live and Rugrats. Her theatrical voice in humor, sketch, and character sketches in these mediums demonstrates her flexibility across formats.

Books: Novels, Humor & Children’s Works

She has published a wide variety of books, including:

• Novels:
   • Him Her Him Again the End of Him (2007)  • Starting from Happy (an illustrated novel)

• Humor / Essay Collections:
   • How to Regain Your Virginity – and 99 Other Recent Discoveries About Sex  • You Can Never Go Wrong by Lying: And Other Solutions to the Moral and Social Dilemmas of Our Time  • Let’s Be Less Stupid: An Attempt to Maintain My Mental Faculties  • Why Don’t You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It? (with Roz Chast)  • You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time: Rules for Couples (also illustrated by Roz Chast)

• Children’s Books:
   • Dot in Larryland: The Big Little Book of an Odd-Sized Friendship  • Now Everybody Really Hates Me (a children’s book)  • Tired Town (children’s or juvenile)

Her work often delights in mixing text with playful illustrations, laments, social satire, and observational humor.

Teaching & Mentorship

Marx has taught screenwriting, humor writing, and related crafts at institutions including Princeton University, Columbia University, NYU (New York University), and Stony Brook University.

Though teaching has been part of her career, she often jokes that she “mainly does errands and looks things up on Wikipedia.”

Awards & Recognition

• Her two novels were finalists for the Thurber Prize for American humor.

• She is a recipient of a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship.

• She is noted for being the first woman elected to the Harvard Lampoon.

Themes, Style & Voice

Patricia Marx’s writing style is marked by:

• Gentle self-deprecation & irony: She often frames her insights with humility, showing humor about her own foibles.

• Domestic minutiae as lens: She mines everyday life—relationships, family, quirks, mistakes—as fertile ground for humor and reflection.

• Blend of genres: Her work moves across fiction, humor essays, memoiristic threads, and commentary.

• Illustrated interplay: Some of her books (especially Starting from Happy) integrate hand-drawn cartoons and sketches, lending a playful, personal tone.

• Emotional undercurrents: Beneath the humor lies sensitivity to vulnerability, aging, relational limits, memory, and identity.

Her work is often praised as “smart funny”—that is, witty without being cynical, observant without being cruel.

Notable Quotes

Here are a few glimpses of her voice (from interviews and her own writing):

From Starting from Happy, in an interview:
“I am not good enough to have a process. I made a lot of mistakes, so I wasted about a rain forest of paper.”

About her teaching:
She quips that although she has taught at multiple prestigious schools, “mainly she does errands and looks things up on Wikipedia.”

These remarks reveal a down-to-earth, self-aware, and humorous attitude toward her own craft.

Legacy & Influence

Patricia Marx holds a distinctive place in contemporary American humor writing. Her contributions include:

• Expanding the place of women in humor circles – as one of the first women in institutions like the Harvard Lampoon and a visible humor writer at major outlets.

• Mentoring & teaching new voices – through her roles in creative writing and humor classes at universities.

• Genre fluidity – she shows that a writer can move between essays, fiction, children’s books, and television without losing coherence.

• Humanizing the comic life – she models a way of writing humor that doesn’t diminish emotional truth.

Her voice remains relevant for readers interested in the intersection of humor, introspection, and the everyday.

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