The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story

This indelible romance begins with a daring conceit--that the author's grandfather may have had an affair with Lucille Ball. Strauss offers a fresh view of a celebrity America loved more than any other.

Lucille Ball--the most powerful woman in the history of Hollywood--was part of America's first high-profile interracial marriage. She owned more movie sets than did any movie studio. She more or less single-handedly created the modern TV business. And yet Lucille's off-camera life was in disarray. While acting out a happy marriage for millions, she suffered in private. Her partner couldn't stay faithful. She struggled to balance her fame with the demands of being a mother, a creative genius, an entrepreneur, and, most of all, a symbol.

The Queen of Tuesday--Strauss's follow-up to Half a Life, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award--mixes fact and fiction, memoir and novel, to imagine the provocative story of a woman we thought we knew.