Montclair, N.J. – Montclair Public Library and its Foundation are hosting Leslie Bennetts at the Main Library on Sunday, December 4 at 4 p.m. As part of the Open Book/Open Mind series, Bennetts will have a conversation about her book Last Girl Before Freeway with Montclair native Mary Alice Williams.
In this talk, two brilliant feminist journalists will discuss the life of Joan Rivers, who smashed innumerable barriers for women in show business, even as she herself remained a prisoner of the sexist values of her youth. Joan Rivers’s life, rife with contradiction, is the subject of Leslie Bennetts’s new biography, Last Girl Before Freeway.
Rivers, the first, female, late-night TV host, thought a woman’s happiness depended on having a husband, but hers destroyed her career. She believed that beauty and youth were crucial to women’s success, and yet she built a billion-dollar company in her 60’s and 70’s.
Leslie Bennetts is the author of the national bestseller The Feminine Mistake as well as a longtime Vanity Fair writer and former New York Times reporter. Montclair native Mary Alice Williams is an accomplished broadcast journalist who was anchor of NBC’s Weekend Today in New York and Vice President of the News Division of CNN. She’s currently anchor of NJTV news.
Bennetts will sign books after the talk. Books will be available for purchase from Watchung Booksellers.
There are a limited number of seats by reservation. Remaining seats are first come, first served.
The 2016 Open Book/Open Mind series is sponsored by Susan and Thomas Dunn.
To register, visit montclairlibrary.org/openbook or call 973-744-0500 ext 2235.
