Rossner, Judith

(US, 1935– )

Rossner has lived in New York all her life. Perhaps her most renowned novel, Looking for Mr Goodbar (1975), is about Theresa Dunn, a teacher by day, and Terry, her alter ego, who cruises bars at night. Mr Goodbar's is one of her haunts. Rossner's novel is both a pithy exploration of failing relationships and a study of ‘women's fluctuating roles across generations’. Different generations of women also feature in Perfidia (1997), in which Rossner examines a smotheringly close mother–daughter relationship. It is set in 1974. Anita Stein leaves her husband and moves to Santa Fe with her 5-year-old daughter. Anita's relationship to her daughter is complicated by the arrival of her second child, a son.

Vladimir Nabokov, Anne Tyler, Colette  CJ