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Join us when author Linda Kass visits to discuss her new book, Bessie, with Kelly Fishman of the Anti-Defamation League.
About the author:
Linda Kass is the author of three historical novels, Tasa’s Song (2016); A Ritchie Boy (2020), an IPPY Gold Medal Winner in Historical Fiction in 2021; and Bessie, which was named A Hasty Book List Most-Anticipated Historical Fiction Title for 2023. Bessie was released in September 2023. Linda began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. She is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Columbus, Ohio. Find her online at lindakass.com
In Bessie, just days after the close of World War II, Bess Myerson—, the college-educated daughter of poor Russian Jewish immigrants living in the Bronx—, is competing in the Miss America pageant. At stake: a $5,000 scholarship. The tension and excitement in Atlantic City’s Warner Theatre is palpable, especially for traumatized Jews rooting for one of their own. So begins Bessie.
Drawing on biographical and historical sources, Bessie reimagines the early life of Bess Myerson, who, in 1945 at age twenty-one, remarkably rises to become one of the most famous women in America. This intimate fictional portrait reveals the transformation of the nearly six-foot-tall, self-deprecating yet talented preteen into an exemplar of beauty—, a peripheral quality in her world, where success is measured by intellectual attainment. Yet it is the focus on her beauty, and the secular world of pageantry, that she must choose to escape her roots and fulfill her fierce desire to achieve and become someone for whom great things happen.
Linda Kass will be in conversation with Kelly Fishman, the Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League’s Cleveland office serving Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, & Western Pennsylvania. In addition to her work now at ADL, she is also currently working on her Doctor of Education degree in diversity and equity in education through the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and writing a chapter for a freshman DEI textbook for West Virginia University.
Books will be available for purchase courtesy of Mac's Backs - Books on Coventry.
TAGS: | Author Event |
The Beachwood Branch first opened to the public on October 31, 1982. At the time, it was the first branch in the CCPL system to have an automated circulation system. Located just a few hundred yards from the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, the branch offers a drive-up window where customers can pick up requested materials, dedicated spaces for kids and teens, and a beautiful outdoor reading garden.
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