“I considered it elder abuse. She put him through the paces, not only before the debate, but after. She should have gotten him out of there immediately.” — Sally Quinn on Jill Biden
Today’s guest is amongst America’s most verbal octogenarians. No, not you-know-who. Sally Quinn is the illustrious Washington DC hostess, writer and commentator. The almost 85-year-old does improv comedy every Sunday, ballroom dancing every week and Zen Buddhist meditation every Monday night. Her novel, Silent Retreat, is now out in paperback. And she’s working on her memoir, tentatively entitled Never Invite Sally Quinn.
Certainly Jill Biden won’t be inviting Sally Quinn any time soon to one of her tête-à-têtes. Quinn’s account of what went wrong with the Biden presidency is sharply personal. Her late husband, legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, had dementia. She watched his cognitive decline from inside, and the parallels with what she observed in Biden were, she tells me, too close for comfort. Jill Biden’s decision to keep Joe running after the debate, when she privately suspected he’d suffered a stroke, was, in Quinn’s word, “elder abuse.”
Silent Retreat, set at a monastery in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, is about the sexiness of silence. A prize-winning reporter and the venerable Archbishop of Dublin fall in love in enforced silence. Anything but elder abuse. But autobiographical? Probably not. As Ben Bradlee used to tease her over breakfast, it’s always been hard for not-silent-Sally to keep her mouth shut.
Five Takeaways
• The Army Brat Who Became Washington’s Most Powerful Hostess. Arrived in Washington after college. Social secretary to the Algerian ambassador. Hired by Ben Bradlee for the Washington Post’s new Style section — the first in American journalism. Married Bradlee. Georgetown became the hub of Washington social life for decades. An army brat who ‘really lucked out.’
• Gerontocracy Is Real — But People Who Keep Going Are Different. The problem is not old people. It’s old people who have stopped growing. She surrounds herself with younger journalists for their energy, idealism, and optimism. Still working full time. The issue is vitality, not age.
• Biden and Jill: Elder Abuse. Her husband Ben Bradlee had dementia. She recognised the signs in Biden. The debate was her worst nightmare. Jill Biden raised his arm in a victory salute after the debate, then took him to campaign in North Carolina. ‘I considered it elder abuse.’
• Silent Retreat. A New Yorker writer and an Archbishop of Dublin check into the same Virginia monastery. They can’t speak to each other. They speak to the monk instead. Kirkus: ‘An unholy brew of lust and faith.’ Airmail: ‘A bodice ripper with a fillip of Roman Catholic ritual.’
• Improv, Ballroom, Zen, and Dinner by Candlelight. Improv comedy every Sunday. Ballroom dancing every week. Zen Buddhist meditation every Monday night. Working out every day. Writing her memoir. Hosting dinner parties as community-building. The memoir’s title: Never Invite Sally Quinn.
About the Guest
Sally Quinn is a longtime Washington Post journalist and the author of Silent Retreat (Simon & Schuster, in paperback), Finding Magic, The Party, and other books. She lives in Georgetown.
References
Silent Retreat by Sally Quinn (Simon & Schuster): simonandschuster.com/books/Silent-Retreat/Sally-Quinn/9781668154748
Episode 2945: Samuel Moyn on Gerontocracy in America
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Chapters:
00:00:32 Moyn, Dylan, and the next best thing
00:01:23 Sally’s 85th birthday party
00:02:30 Is Moyn right? Gerontocracy is real
00:02:43 You can’t know who will lose it
00:04:22 The Biden presidency
00:06:00 Jill Biden: elder abuse
00:07:18 An army brat who really lucked out
00:35:04 The silent retreat and the novel
00:38:41 Zen Buddhist meditation
00:40:01 Dinner parties as community
00:42:30 Improv comedy every Sunday
00:43:16 Never Invite Sally Quinn