arts & life

Mother and daughter.

"It's not even a year

profile

yet," Melissa told

the New York Post of

the comedy legend's

Sept. 4, 2014, death,

at 81, in September.

"I went through this

20-odd years ago

with my dad. I know

it gets better. But do

you ever stop missing

them? No:'

Tgeet:p t ik'r

Melissa Rivers heads to town to talk

about her late mom.

Suzanne Chessler I Contributing Writer

ike moms across the coun-
try, Melissa Rivers had to
fit accommodating her
son's Halloween activities into a
work routine. Unlike other moms
across the country, the work
routine involved the glamour of
show business.
Amid planning her style-based
television program and book-
centered speaking engagements,
she had to make sure 14-year-old
Cooper enjoyed holiday fun.
"There's a common thread with
everybody who has children:'
says Rivers, 47, who chronicles

experiences with her mom, the
late comedian Joan Rivers, in
The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth,
Mischief and Manipulation (Crown
Archetype).
'Although we have lived in these
extraordinary circumstances, my
relationship with my mother was
incredibly normal, and that's with
my son, too.
"I have been on a group text
with two other moms sorting out
Halloween Horror Night — who's
driving, who's picking up, who's
chaperoning them through the
park to make sure they stay safe

Tik e Kok

pith

Tales

of

Mirth,

Mischief,

and

Manipulation

dissa Nors

56 November 12 • 2015

without them knowing it."
Rivers will appear Thursday eve-
ning, Nov. 19, at the second annual
Jeffrey Zaslow Media Night at the
Berman Center for the Performing
Arts in West Bloomfield. In a
phone conversation from her
California office, she previewed her
local talk about family as expressed
through the book
"The book is funny," says Rivers,
whose mom appeared many times
in Michigan — at entertainment
venues and for Jewish causes. "I
want people to read it and enjoy it.
"I think the warmth of our rela-
tionship is the linchpin, and it is
filled with stories and anecdotes.
We're Jewish so there are lots of
jokes in the book about that. It's
not a heavy, serious tome.
"My talk is really about bal-
ance and survival and how to get
through the crap times and still
be able to laugh. Writing the book
became healing because I got to
sit with my writing partner [Larry
Amoros] and laughed from the
stories every day. It was so nice to
think funny."
Rivers, an only child whose
dad (producer Edgar Rosenberg)
died when she was 18, feels she
is the only one who could give

the history of the life they had. To
complete the book, she and her
partner would meet three or four
times a week and email pages back
and forth.
"Our family motto was a version

of a Winston Churchill quote: 'If
you find yourself in Hell, walk fast-
er:" Rivers says. "The other thing in
our family was 'this, too, shall pass:
which works in both good and bad
times. In bad, it's keep going, and

Joan and husband Edgar Rosenberg attend the

Tonight Show's 10th-anniversary party in 1972.