Non-Fiction at Bryant Park Reading Room

Angelica: For Love & Country in a Time of Revolution is a vivid biography of Angelica Schuyler “Carter” Church, a leading American woman whose web of influence spanned the American War for Independence, the formative postwar years, and the turbulent politics and rival ideologies that threatened to tear apart the nascent United States. “Beer skillfully reconstructs Church’s voice and agency,” writes Library Journal, “situating her story within the complex intersections of gender, class, race, and power. This engaging biography offers both historical depth and narrative clarity.”Molly Beer is a documentary writer whose work grapples with the politics of place. After years of reporting from Central and South America, South Asia, and across the U.S., she returned to her roots to research and write Angelica, a book that chronicles the far-flung life of Angelica Schuyler “Carter” Church: the charismatic Founding Era networker and de facto diplomat who gave her name to Beer’s hometown of Angelica, New York. Beer has served as an Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in Creative Writing at Colgate University and currently teaches writing at the University of Michigan.