Book Club Night Kit

American Scoundrel

Kai Bird with Susan Goldmark

Cozy night

Kai Bird, co-author of "American Prometheus," turns his biographer's eye on Roy Cohn, the lawyer and fixer whose fingerprints smudge a startling amount of twentieth century American life. It is a portrait so vivid and so full of contradictions that nobody leaves the room without an opinion.

Pull Up a Chair, We Need to Talk About Roy

Baked ziti, hot cider, black and white cookies, and Kai Bird's enormous portrait of American scoundrel Roy Cohn. Come in something soft, bring your dog-eared pages, finishing the book is strictly optional.

Reading level: Moderate

Best for: A club that loves a big meaty biography but wants to talk about it in soft chairs with second helpings

Discussion

Warm-up

1.Before you opened the book, what did the name Roy Cohn mean to you (a headline, a half-memory, a relative's offhand comment, or nothing at all)?
2.Where did you do most of your reading of this one, and did it need a particular setting (a quiet chair, daylight, something warm nearby) to sit comfortably with you?

Digging in

1.This is a book about a man who collected powerful friends. Tell us about a time someone's introduction or phone call opened a door for you, and how that felt.
2.Bird writes about a world where everything runs on favors owed. Did any part of that make you think warmly about your own circle of people who show up for each other, or did it mostly unsettle you?
3.Roy Cohn's parents loom over his story. What did the family material stir up for you about the expectations you grew up inside, gentle or otherwise?
4.Was there a passage where you felt unexpected tenderness or pity toward a man you were fully prepared to dislike? Read us a few lines if you marked them.

Going deep

1.Bird and Goldmark spend years with a subject many people would rather not sit with. What do you think it costs a biographer to keep that much company with someone, and did you feel that cost in the writing?
2.Closing the book, what feeling were you left holding (sadness, anger, a strange sympathy, relief), and did it surprise you to find yourself feeling it?

On the table & to sip

To eat

Warm pastrami sliders with pickles on the side

A nod to mid-century New York delicatessen counters, the kind of lunch where deals got made, shrunk down to something passable around a coffee table.

Baked ziti in one big dish

Cohn's New York ran on long dinners in red-sauce rooms. A pan of ziti is the homey, forgiving version, and it feeds everyone without a seating chart.

Black and white cookies plus a plate of rugelach

Classic New York bakery comfort, and the black and white is an almost too perfect dessert for a book about a man of two sides.

To sip

Hot spiced apple cider with cinnamon sticks (no alcohol)

The non-alcoholic anchor of the night. Warm mugs keep the conversation soft even when the subject matter is not.

Egg creams (chocolate syrup, milk, seltzer) (no alcohol)

A genuine old New York soda fountain drink, fizzy and nostalgic, fun to make at the table and completely booze free.

A simple Manhattan, batched in a pitcher

The obvious period cocktail for a book this deep in New York power rooms. Batch it ahead so nobody is playing bartender all night.