![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/static01.nyt.com/packages/flash/multimedia/ICONS/transparent.png)
Ann Birstein in 1997.
Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times; thumbnail, Erich Hartmann, late 1950s
Ann Birstein
Died on May 24, 2017 at age 89
A novelist and memoirist, Ms. Birstein recounted her bittersweet Jewish roots in New York as a rabbi’s daughter in Hell’s Kitchen and her turbulent marriage to the literary critic Alfred Kazin.
Notable Deaths 2017
Remembering Mary Tyler Moore, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, David Rockefeller, Trisha Brown, Glen Campbell, Dick Gregory, Edith Windsor, Sam Shepard, Tom Petty and many others who died this year.