Jean Babette Stein was born in Chicago, Illinois on February 9, 1934. She attended Wellesley College and the Sorbonne, but did not graduate. While in France in 1955, she interviewed William Faulkner for The Paris Review. She worked for The Paris Review for several years before moving to New York City to work for Esquire magazine. She was the editor and publisher of Grand Street, a quarterly literary journal, from around 1990 to 2004.
She wrote several books during her lifetime including American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy, Edie: An American Biography, and West of Eden: An American Place. She died in a fall from her 15th floor apartment on April 30, 2017 at the age of 83.
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