Synopses & Reviews
First time in paperback, this unique biography and cultural history is based on History extensive research and interviews with more than one hundred witnesses from the period. Acclaimed novelist and playwright Susan Dworkin skillfully interweaves the absorbing first-person account of how Bess Myerson became the countrys first, and still only, Jewish Miss America in the same year that World War II ended, with a fresh portrait of what life was like for women and Jews in America in the 1930s and 40s. Her tale of one girls coming of age in prefeminist America is “poignant and appealing . . . as much a cameo of an era as a work of biography.” —ALA Booklist
Synopsis
Vivid, engrossing, and startling, this sure-fire bestseller evokes America in the '30s and '40s, while telling a post-war Cinderella-like tale of Bess Myerson, the only Jewish Miss America. 40 photographs.
About the Author
Acclaimed writer Susan Dworkin is the author of many books, including the memoir
The Nazi Officers Wife with Edith Hahn Beer, the novel
Stolen Goods, the novel-musical
The Book of Candy, the self-help book
The Ms. Guide to a Womans Health with Dr. Cynthia W. Cooke, and the film studies
Making Tootsie and
Double De Palma. She wrote the Peabody Award-winning TV documentary
She's Nobodys Baby: American Women in the 20th Century and was a longtime contributing editor to
Ms. Magazine. She lives in New Jersey.
Bess Myerson now devotes her time mainly to advocacy in the area of womens health research and treatment, consumerism, education, and peace in the Middle East. She is on the National Advisory Board of the State of Israel Bonds, a member of the “Share” Board and a trained facilitator working with ovarian cancer survivors, and one of the founders of the Museum of Jewish Heritage. She lives in New York City.