DP: Next month is the 40th anniversary of Parker’s death and your organization is holding “A Journey into Dorothy Parker’s New York” on June 4. What exactly was Parker’s New York?

Kevin: That is what makes Dorothy Parker timeless. Her New York still exists: cocktail lounges, hotel lobbies, jazz clubs, magazine offices, crowded subway cars, long taxicab rides at night. Almost all the places she lived 40, 60, 80 years ago are still standing. You don’t have to go too far in Manhattan to find the milieu that she lived in. However, since the mayor’s smoking ban, the cigarette smoke has been removed from the picture.
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DP: Is Parker still an important literary figure in 2007? If so, why?

Kevin: The fact is Dorothy Parker has never gone out of print. Work that she created before World War I is still on bookshelves. There are not that many American writers, male or female, who are in that company; certainly not a writer such as Parker, who had a limited output. I’ve often said that the reason Dorothy Parker is still read today, and remains popular while others of her era have been forgotten, is because she wrote about the human condition. Getting your heart smashed into a million pieces feels the same in 2007 as it did in 1927. Read the whole interview.