Lucy Sante on on Transitioning Into Herself at Long Last

Three years ago, at age 66, the Belgium-born writer and critic Lucy Sante—known for her award-winning essays, criticism, and books, including Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991)—announced to a few dozen close friends that she was transitioning to womanhood. This news came following nearly four decades of publishing her work under the byline Luc Sante. In her new memoir, I Heard Her Call My Name (Penguin Press), which she discusses at length on this episode of Time Sensitive, Sante writes about the first six months of her recent transition, the decades-long silence that preceded it, and various piercing moments from her life that led up to it. She is also the author of books such as Nineteen Reservoirs (2022), The Other Paris (2015), and Folk Photography (2009), and her writing has appeared in publications including The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Artforum, and Vanity Fair. Across all of her work, Sante brings a searing, no-nonsense clarity and a photographic eye for detail.

Also on this episode, Sante talks about why she thinks of the 1960s as “a kind of magic time,” her life-transforming literary journey, and her decision to open the floodgates of her womanhood.

Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

[3:49] Lucy Sante

[3:49] I Heard Her Call My Name

[3:49] The Factory of Facts

[6:27] Nineteen Reservoirs

[6:27] Low Life

[9:28] Histories of the Transgender Child

[9:28] Jules Gill-Peterson

[22:11] Tintin

[24:07] Terry Southern

[24:07] Writers in Revolt

[24:07] Alexander Trocchi’s Caine’s Book

[24:07] Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” 

[24:07] Peter Orlovsky

[24:07] William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch

[24:07] Curzio Malapart’s Kaputt

[29:05] The New York Review of Books

[34:23] Folk Photography

[36:55] The Other Paris

[38:04] Walker Evans

[38:04] Robert Frank

[46:10] Maybe People Would Be the Times

[49:52] “The Invention of the Blues”

[51:41] The Velvet Underground

[51:41] Lou Reed

[51:41] Andrew Wylie