By: Linda Kass
ISBN: 978-1647425401
She Writes Press, 2023
2025 Sarton Finalist: Historical Fiction
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.
About the Author
Linda Kass is the author of three historical novels, all inspired by true events or people. She began her career as a magazine writer and correspondent for regional and national publications. A longtime civic leader in Columbus, Ohio, she is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in central Ohio.
Bessie (2023), named the Prose Finalist for the eighth annual Phillip H. McMath Post-Publication Book Award, reimagines the early life of Bess Myerson, the talented daughter of poor Russian Jewish immigrants who, in 1945, remarkably rises to become Miss America during a precarious moment in our culture’s history. MSMagazine.com called Bessie \"nuanced, complex and insightful.\" A Ritchie Boy (2020), the 2021 IPPY Gold Medal Winner in Historical Fiction, renders interconnected stories that reveal one young immigrant’s journey in America during World War II. The novel was named by Indie booksellers as an Ingram best indie when it was released. Tasa’s Song (2016), which Publishers Weekly called “a memorable tale of unflinching courage in the face of war—and the power of love and beauty to flourish amid its horrors,” inspired acclaimed violinist Charles Wetherbee, of the Carpe Diem String Quartet, to compose an original composition for violin, “Tasa’s Song,” that had its world premiere in May of 2016 in Columbus, Ohio.
To learn more about Linda Kass and her work, please see www.lindakass.com/
