56 | OCTOBER 31 • 2024 J
N

A

uthors 
of three nonfiction 
books about famous people are 
among the many presenters 
appearing Nov. 6-17 at this year’s 
Detroit Jewish Book Fair at The J. 
It is the 73rd season of the event. 
Eddie Shapiro, with a love for 
theater, chronicles conversa-
tions with top women stars on 
Broadway in Here’s to the Ladies. 
His discussion, at 7 p.m. Nov. 6, 
will be followed by a live musical 
program recalling the star- 
presented songs. 
Margalit Fox, whose base career 
was writing obituaries for the New 
York Times, takes readers into 
the life of a 19th-century Jewish 
woman heading up property 
illegalities — The Talented Mrs. 
Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall 
of an American Organized-Crime 
Boss. Her presentation is at 7 p.m. 
Nov. 7.
Adam Nimoy, whose dad took 
moviegoers into another world in 
Star Trek productions, tells about 
the difficulties and resolutions of 
his father-son relationship in The 
Most Human: Reconciling With My 

Father, 
Leonard 
Nimoy. The talk, 
presented at 7 p.m. Nov. 
12, also covers his own ventures 
into entertainment.
Shapiro, who wrote the simi-
lar books Nothing Like a Dame: 
Conversations with the Great 
Women of Musical Theater and 
A Wonderful Guy: Conversations 
with the Great Men of Musical 
Theater, found work on his new 
book went faster because it was 
done during the pandemic when 
he could often interview on 
Zoom instead of during in-person 
appointments. 
“It was not a desire to immerse 
myself in theater writing but a 
desire to figure out a good way 
to immerse myself in this world,” 
said Shapiro, who had been a 
stage actor in the early part of his 
career. “I like the candor that all 
of these people shared.”
As Shapiro was doing the 
interviews, he got a sense of 
the philosophies that the stars 
believed and found them helpful 
to his own life.
Some of the stars in his book 
are part of a younger genera-
tion with Stephanie Block (The 

Boy from Oz, Wicked) and Jesse 
Mueller (On a Clear Day You 
Can See Forever, Beautiful: 
The Carole King Musical). 
There are also people who’ve 
been at it for a long time 
but aren’t quite household 
names like Mary Beth 
Peil (Mirrors, The Stepford 
Wives) and Faith Prince 
(Guys and Dolls, Annie).
“What’s been most sur-
prising is true in all three 
of the books,” he said. “You 
might think that people who 
have reached the pinnacle 
are no longer insecure about 
where they are. That is a myth. 
The insecurity amazed me even 
from the greats.”
Shapiro said he found 95 per-
cent of the interviews interesting 
for different reasons. Some were 
interesting because they defied his 
expectations of them. Some were 
interesting just because their sto-
ries were interesting.
Among the Jewish stars he 
has interviewed are Judy Kuhn 
(Titanic), Idina Menzel (Wicked) 
and Judy Kaye (Phantom of the 
Opera).
“It’s always nice when you’re 
talking to a Jewish performer 
because there’s a shorthand, and 
you can drop Yiddishisms,” said 
Shapiro, whose sister is a rabbi. 
“It’s always nice when they under-
stand you.”
Fox is bringing her fifth mys-
tery book to The J. The first three 
were written while she was still 
working for the Times, and the 
last two were written after her 
retirement.
“I came across a reference to 
Mrs. Mandelbaum, and she just 
seized hold of me and wouldn’t 
let me go,” Fox said. “I wanted to 
answer the question that pretty 
much underlies all of the topics 
that I choose for my books, and 
the question is: How can this be?”
Fox found the personal story 
of Mrs. Mandelbaum interesting 
because there were ways in which 

Famous people are the 
focus of three authors to 
be featured at Book Fair. 

Nonfiction 
Spotlight
Spotlight 

SUZANNE CHESSLER 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ARTS&LIFE
BOOKS

Eddie 
Shapiro

Adam 
Nimoy

Margalit 
Fox