Bessie

A Novel

Linda Kass

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2023
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781647425395
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Just days after the close 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.

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.

Bessie is a tender study of a bold young woman living at a precarious moment in our cultural history as she searches for love and acceptance, eager to make her mark on the world.

 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Warner Theatre, Atlantic City
• Chapter One: Olive Oyl
• Chapter Two: Tar Beach
• Chapter Three: Escape through Music
• Chapter Four: A Special High School
• Chapter Five: Sophomore Year
• Chapter Six: A Girl Can Do; A Girl Can Be
• Chapter Seven: The War Begins; Hunter College and the 68 Club
• Chapter Eight: Summer Camp and Waves
• Chapter Nine: Modeling
• Chapter Ten: Miss New York City
• Chapter Eleven: Media Whirlwind; Panic Sets In
• Chapter Twelve: Arriving in Atlantic City
• Chapter Thirteen: The Pageant, Day One
• Chapter Fourteen: Opening Night, Talent Competition
• Chapter Fifteen: Evening Gown and Swimsuit Competition
• Chapter Sixteen: The Final Day!
• Chapter Seventeen: The Tour Begins with Vaudeville
• Chapter Eighteen: Victory Bonds and Veterans
• Chapter Nineteen: Traveling the South
• Chapter Twenty: The Brotherhood Campaign
• Chapter Twenty-One: Carnegie Hall
• Epilogue
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Music Featured in Bessie
• Reader’s Guide
• About the Author
• Selected Titles from She Writes Press