Gary M. Pomerantz

Event is Free. Pomerantz tells the true story of glamorous Kansas City housewife Myrtle Bennett, who killed her philandering husband over a bridge game in 1929. Combine the favorite card game of proper intellectuals including Warren Buffett with a scandalous real-life murder and a cheating husband, and ... (more)you've got an irresistible summer read. (Pomerantz will start his presentation with a 13 minute video of actors portraying characters from the book) Pomerantz is a former AJC reporter and the author of "Where Peachtree meets Sweet Auburn" and "Wilt, 1962).

As the Roaring Twenties' last celebratory peals rang through a nation about to slip into the Depression, Myrtle Bennett, a glamorous Kansas City housewife, killed her philandering husband over a bridge game. At her ballyhooed murder trial, her defense attorney was a two-time Democratic presidential candidate ... (more)and Pendergast Machine–man, James A. Reed. Merely the most famous man in Kansas City, Reed, a riveting orator, represented the likes of Henry Ford and oil companies. For Myrtle, he put on a dramatic courtroom show of logic, eloquence, and a few tears. Watching from New York was Ely Culbertson, a tuxedoed boulevardier with a Russian accent and a gorgeous American wife, Josephine, who was his bridge partner. As the P.T. Barnum of the game of bridge, Ely Culbertson offered trial commentary and used the Bennetts’ story to sell bridge, his instructional books, and himself. Housewives adored him and rushed to hear his lectures. A few months after the 1931 trial, when the Culbertsons won the Bridge Battle of the Century at the Waldorf-Astoria amid the glitter of New York’s high society and Hollywood newsreels, they became millionaire icons. Through these larger-than-life characters and the timeless partnership game they played, The Devil's Tickets evokes the last echoes of the Gay '20s and the darkness of the Depression. Ultimately it reveals a tension between husbands and wives that is eternal and that manifests itself at the bridge table—both then and now—in ways surprising and profound. Gary Pomerantz, author and journalist, wrote the critically acclaimed Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds, and Wilt, 1962. He serves as a lecturer in the Department of Communication at Stanford University. Pomerantz will read from, discuss and sign copies of The Devil's Tickets: A Night of Bridge, a Fatal Hand, and a New American Age beginning at 7 p.m. on Monday, June 22, in the Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater. The event is free and open to the public.