Newport News Native Releases His Third Book Set in the Jewish South

Media Release

Newport News Native Releases His Third Book Set in the Jewish South

Washington, DC — Author, speaker and historian, Milton Stern, released his third book, a novel about five menopausal Jewish women set in his hometown of Newport News, Virginia.

Stern is the author of “America’s Bachelor President and the First Lady” and “Harriet Lane, America’s First Lady,” the first extensive biography of the most beloved White House hostess ever. He has given lectures on Harriet Lane, and will appear at Wheatland in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on November 15.

His latest book is his first novel, based on a script he wrote twenty years ago.

“I wrote a screenplay in 1985, called ‘The Girls’ that I have now developed into a novel,” Stern says. “’On Tuesdays, They Played Mah Jongg’ (ISBN 1-4116-5229-0), takes place in the present and flashes back to one fateful year as the main character, Michael Bern, a gay Hollywood television writer, goes through therapy to resolve some issues that involved his mother and her four closest friends.”

The women, Hannah, Florence, Rona, Arlene and Doreen, were friends for more than forty years and saw each other through life's triumphs, tragedies and multiple spouses. For these women, life revolved around the weekly Mah Jongg game, where they shmoozed, gossiped, advised, listened, learned, related, laughed, cried, cursed, and ate. However, it was one event-filled year that drastically affected all of them and threatened the one thing that kept them together — Mah Jongg.

“Jewish women, along with women of any ethnicity, will be able to identify with these five women and the men in their lives,” Stern says of the main characters. “In addition, any gay man, who grew up alone in a small town, will also find comfort in the characters in ‘On Tuesdays, They Played Mah Jongg.’ There is Michael, Hannah’s son, Alvin, a divorce attorney, Donald, their confidante and hairdresser, and of course, the gay therapist, Dr. Mikowsky, who gets Michael to open and tell this fascinating, hilarious and sometimes disturbing story.”

Stern is well-known for his humor during educational presentations, where he keeps the audience interested through his marvelous delivery and quick timing. Often asked to tell a joke to get people in the mood, his fans will find delight in “On Tuesdays, They Played Mah Jongg.”

From the book jacket:

“On Tuesdays, They Played Mah Jongg” tells the story of Michael Bern, a gay television writer in Hollywood, who for two decades has stared at an unfinished screenplay sitting on his desk. After attending a friend's funeral in his hometown of Newport News, Virginia, Michael returns to Hollywood and finds there is more than a screenplay that is unfinished in his life. He finally confronts what the screenplay represents — memories and stories of the sometimes sad, often hilarious, characters of his past, especially his mother and her four closest friends. Florence, Hannah, Rona, Arlene and Doreen — five more fascinating, menopausal, Jewish women one would never meet. They were friends for more than forty years and saw each other through life's triumphs, tragedies and multiple spouses. Yet, there was only one constant in their lives. On Tuesdays, they played Mah Jongg.

On Tuesdays, They Played Mah Jongg
© 2005 Milton Stern
ISBN 1-4116-5229-0

Contact: Milton Stern
Phone: 202-247-1149
Email: miltonstern@comcast.net
Web: www.miltonstern.com