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About Daphne Merkin
- Daphne Miriam Merkin (born in New York City) is an American literary critic, essayist and novelist.
- Merkin is a graduate of Barnard College and also attended Columbia University's graduate program in English literature.She began her career as a book critic for the magazines Commentary, The New Republic, and The New Leader, where she wrote a book column and later, a movie column.
- In 1986, she became an editor with the publishing house of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- In 1997, after Tina Brown became editor of The New Yorker, Merkin became a film critic for the magazine.
- She also wrote extensively on books and became known for her frank forays into autobiography; her personal essays dealt with subjects ranging from her battle with depression, to her predilection for spanking, to the unacknowledged complexities of growing up rich on Park Avenue.
- In 2005, she joined The New York Times Magazine as a contributing writer.
- She is the author of a novel, Enchantment (1984) as well as two collections of essays, Dreaming of Hitler (1997) and The Fame Lunches (2014).
- and a memoir, This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression (2017).Her parents were the philanthropists Hermann and Ursula Merkin.
- Her brother is J.
- Ezra Merkin, a hedge fund manager and philanthropist who was embroiled in the Bernard Madoff scandal.Merkin teaches writing at the 92nd Street Y.
- She married and divorced Michael Brod, and lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with her daughter, Zoe.
- She also is a contributing editor to Tablet magazine.
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