The Woman at the Washington Zoo Author:Marjorie Williams Journalist Marjorie Williams died of cancer in January 2005. THE WOMAN AT THE WASHINGTON ZOO is a collection of her best pieces assembled by her husband, Timothy Noah. — Williams was known to readers for her literate and engaging op-ed column in the Washington Post, her extended profiles of Washington power players for Vanity Fair, and occasional... more » pieces in the online journal Slate, some of which were written with her husband.
Williams wrote without puff on Barbara Bush, Clark Clifford, and Vernon Jordan. Realizing why she is uncomfortable about Howard Dean -- he is a doctor -- she recalls her experiences with several brusque and officious medical professionals; a tribute to her late colleague Mary McGrory highlights Marjorie's own high standards of journalistic and personal conduct; and in a piece on dressing her daughter up for Halloween, she concludes with a fantasy of an older self a few years hence seeing her daughter off to a prom, -- a future, she writes, "that I will probably never have." Together, these essays are models for aspiring writers, and models for a life well lived.« less