Book Talk: Gayle Feldman Author Of Nothing Random, In Conversation With Cathleen McGuigan
The Church
Gayle Feldman, journalist and author of Nothing Random: Bennett Cerf and the Publishing House He built, invites you to dive deep into an epic story that The New York Times, in a rave review, compared to Robert Caro’s The Powerbroker. Her biography takes you inside the world of the founder of Random House, a man who later became a celebrity on What’s My Line? Cerf straddled books, Broadway, Hollywood, TV, and New York City.
Feldman will converse with award-winning journalist and critic Cathleen McGuigan. The two will explore how Feldman wrote this landmark cultural history, and venture into Cerf’s star-studded life. Following the discussion will be a Q&A with the audience and book signing.
Nothing Random, twenty-three years in the making, was hailed by The Washington Post as “a work of biographical reclamation [and] a whole lot of fun… in its pages, Feldman depicts a lost world, at times a lost paradise, when New York, Hollywood and the literary life were at their most glamorous and privileged.”
Cerf’s star-studded life stretched from William Faulkner to Dr. Seuss; George Gershwin to Frank Sinatra; Gertrude Stein to Judy Garland; FDR to Henry Kissinger.
He fought for free expression and helped transform which books could reach readers, and how they would be published and marketed. His legacy lives on every time someone reads Truman Capote, Ralph Ellison, Ayn Rand, Philip Roth, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and so many more. Former Sag Harbor residents Robert Loomis, Jason Epstein, and E.L. Doctorow were interviewed for this book, which was partly written in the John Jermain Library.
A special thank you to our community bookseller, Book Hampton, for partnering with us for this program.
