The Virtual Memories Show – A podcast about books & life — not necessarily in that order
From an author praised for writing “delicious social history” (Dwight Garner, The New York Times ) comes a fast-paced account of memorable Miss America contestants, protests, and scandals, showing decade by decade how the pageant has both resisted and reflected the gains of feminism. Looking for Miss America examines the heady blend of capitalism, patriotism, class anxiety, and cultural mythology that has fueled this American ritual for a century. Winner of the Popular Culture Association’s Emily Toth Best
Praise “A spellbinding…first-rate analysis of the United States’s most distinctive beauty contest.” — The Los Angeles Review of Books “Mifflin’s lively book reads as an obituary…She’s cleareyed about the pageant’s many hypocrisies and failures…But Mifflin, too, is invested in the pageant’s sense of specialness.” — The New York Times “Mifflin is as alive to the pageant’s historical grotesqueries as she is to the weirdo deta
The Virtual Memories Show – A podcast about books & life — not necessarily in that order