New York City Love Triangle, 1931: A Tale of Three Families

2026 INDIE BOOK AWARDS FINALIST for General and Historical NonfictionIn August of 1931, a dashing 25-year-old resident of the author's present Manhattan apartment building in 2024 – an artist named Norma Jeanne Bernstein – was driven back to Manhattan by her father from the summer camp she had been supervising in the Adirondacks to submit to a police interrogation.The subject?Dr. Milton Thomashefsky had just been shot in the spine by his nurse – Agnes Birdseye, daughter of a Republican DA clerk who was cousin to the inventor of frozen foods. That Birdseye.The nurse had then turned the gun on herself. Three shots had been fired in total. Two ambulances had been summoned. One diamond engagement ring had been found.This is the tale of a NYC love triangle -- turned murderous and suicidal -- that marked the convergence of three major families and involved a Tammany Hall judge and assemblyman, a former assistant to the chief of police, a preternaturally talented painter and the lothario son of the most famous Yiddish actor in the world.The book is a deep-dive into the generational, fascinating origins of these lovers, a look into how they ever could have become so enmeshed and at odds, an exploration of the cataclysm, a most violent collision and its rippling aftermath to this very day – and finally, also, an appreciation of the great art, the brilliant and soulful portraiture, of the scandal's lone survivor, a Parisian-trained artist whose final studio the author spent four days in, reading love letters she'd saved from 1931 that no one outside her family ever had -- and whose work thoroughly merits rediscovery. Read more