Melissa Bank, witty, bestselling author, dies at 61
Melissa Bank, whose 1999 bestseller “The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing” was a series of interconnected stories widely praised for its wit and precise language and embraced by many young readers has died
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Melissa Bank, whose 1999 bestseller “The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing" was a series of interconnected stories widely praised for its wit and precise language and embraced by young readers, has died at age 61.
Viking Books announced that Bank died Tuesday in East Hampton, New York. She had lung cancer.
Bank was a Philadelphia native with a master's degree from Cornell University whose influences ranged from Vladimir Nabokov to Grace Paley. She needed 12 years to finish “The Girls' Guide," in part because of a bicycle accident that damaged her short-term memory and ability to think of words. But her book, which follows a young woman's life from adolescence to adulthood, was a critical and commercial success.
“Bank draws exquisite portraits of loneliness, and can do it in a sentence," Newsweek's Yahlin Chang wrote.
Two stories from “The Girls' Guide" were adapted into the 2007 romantic comedy "Suburban Girl,'' starring Alec Baldwin and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Bank also wrote the comic story collection “The Wonder Spot," in which she traced a woman's efforts to find her place in the world, and her writings appeared in Ploughshares and Zoetrope among other publications. She also taught in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.