Bessie

Listed in the Music category on Art In Fiction, Bessie  (2023) by Linda Kass reimagines the early life of Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America. Just days after the end of World War II, Bess Myerson, the 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 are palpable, especially for traumatized Jews rooting for one of their own. So begins Bessie . Bess Myerson, 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.   “Like all celebrities, Bess Myerson seemed to come from out of nowhere— a bright meteor suddenly streaking across the night sky. But in this evocative new book . . . we learn the backstory of Myerson, whose looks and talent captivated the mid-20th-century world. Julia Keller, author of A Killing in the Hills Linda Kass is the author of two historical novels, Tasa’s Song and A Ritchie Boy . She 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.   Buy Now from Amazon Buy Now from Bookshop Find other novels by Linda Kass on Art In Fiction.