"Cousin Bella -- The Whore of Minsk" recounts the life of prize-winning playwright Sherman Yellen's immigrant relative, who as a young Jewish woman in Russia was sold into prostitution, rescued by the author's indomitable grandmother, and immigrated to America where the most extraordinary drama of her life was yet to unfold. Bella, a childless woman, driven to acts of deception by her desperate love for another woman's child, recounted her life to the author in her last years; a story confirmed by the author's family. A gripping tale of a fierce love that led to child theft, incest, disgrace,...

Playwright, librettist, Tony nominee, and two-time Emmy Award-winning writer Sherman Yellen lovingly recreates the world of his impoverished forebears before World War I; his troubled, prosperous, mendacious father; his beautiful, willful fashion-model mother, and especially his own New York childhood in the 1930s and 40s in this remarkable family saga. Yellen's childhood witnessed both great events and the everyday life of a city boy in an embattled family, all viewed through the eyes of an observant little boy waiting impatiently for his body to catch up to his all-seeing consciousness....