Jane Stanton Hitchcock
Bestselling author Jane Stanton Hitchcock was born and raised in New York City, where she led a seemingly privileged life. Early on, she learned the trappings of wealth and fame are not nearly all they are cracked up to be, themes she has since explored in screenplays, stage plays, and novels dealing with murder and mayhem in high places.
Best known for her mystery novels, Jane is also an avid poker player who regularly competes in the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. Her sixth novel, BLUFF, to be published in January 2019, pays tribute to her passion for poker, focusing on how the game helps her heroine seek revenge against the man who swindled her family out of a fortune. (Jane herself stars in an episode of American Greed which shows how she was the first to alert authorities to the larceny of the celebrity accountant, Kenneth Ira Starr. Starr’s clients, many of whom were originally introduced to him by Jane’s mother and stepfather, Arthur Stanton, included Mike Nichols, Lauren Bacall, Neil Simon, and Bunny Mellon.)
Jane started her career writing screenplays. Our Time deals with the death of a prep school girl from an illegal abortion. Her other plays include Grace, The Custom of the Country (an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s great novel, produced at The Mount and then off-Broadway), and Vanilla, directed by Harold Pinter (starring Joanna Lumley and opened at the Lyric Theatre in London’s West End in 1990).
In 1992, Signet/Penguin published Jane’s first novel Trick of the Eye. The book was nominated in the "Best First Novel" category for both the Hammett Prize and the Edgar Award. Her next book, The Witches' Hammer, a controversial thriller dealing with the occult and the misogyny of a centuries old law book dedicated to witch hunting within the Catholic Church, was published in 1994. Her third novel, Social Crimes, a New York Times bestseller, introduced Jo Slater, a New York socialite who commits murder. When the book was published the fun guessing game at many New York dinner parties quickly became which characters were based on which socialites and their friends. In June 2005, Hitchcock published the sequel to Social Crimes, One Dangerous Lady, also a New York Times bestseller. In June 2009, Hitchcock published Mortal Friends, her first mystery set in Washington, DC, which Bob Woodward described as “a dazzling, wicked murder mystery that unmasks most of Washington, which may never be the same.”
Jane Stanton Hitchcock attended The Brearley School, The Mary C. Wheeler School, and Sarah Lawrence College. She worked for Mike Nichols on The Apple Tree, and was an assistant to Andre Previn when he was the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Jane was a close friend of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She was honored to read Psalm 23 at the former First Lady's funeral in 1994.
Jane’s mother, actress Joan Alexander, originated the roles of Lois Lane on the radio serial The Adventures of Superman and Della Street on the radio serial Perry Mason. Joan had her own television show, The Name’s the Same, and starred as a leading lady on Broadway in Witness for the Prosecution and Poor Richard. Jane’s stepfather, Arthur Stanton brought Volkswagen to America in the early 1950s.
Jane Stanton Hitchcock is married to Jim Hoagland, a two-time Pulitzer prize-winning journalist. They live in Washington, D.C. and New York City. For more information please visit: www.janestantonhitchcock.com.
“A violent act pierces the atmosphere, leaving a hole through which the cold, damp draft of its memory blows forever.”
“i thought about the miseries people conceal and how they manage to survive.”
“We've all done things we wish we hadn't, made choices we didn't even know were choices at that time. but that doesn't mean we have to stick by them. In life, you find out who you are gradually, not all at once. You made a bad choice, okay? But you can still get out of it.”
“trouble with people is, they always think they have to talk.”
“it's much more interesting to try and understand what binds two people together. why we stay with each other is much more of a mystery than why we don't.”
“we all get humiliated at some point or another during our lives. the trick is not to let it make you resentful or defeatist.”
“i'm out to make difference in the world, to lead the way by giving much and giving often.”
“people without sense of humor aren't much fun to be around, no matter how far they've gotten.”
“People are only taken seriously as they take themselves.”
“Libraries are like houses of worship: Whether or not you use them yourself, it's important to know that they are there. In many ways they define a society and the values of that society. Librarians to me are the keepers of the flame of knowledge. When I was growing up, the librarian in my local library looked like a meek little old lady, but after you spent some time with her, you realized she was Athena with a sword, a wise and wonderful repository of wisdom.”
“People described me then as a "socialite," a label I loathe. It cast me in a lurid and ridiculous light, implying a life of privileged frivolity where everyone fits around from one party to the next wearing calculated clothes and expensive smiles”