Phyllis Karas has been a New York Times best-selling author, professor of journalism at Boston University, and a stringer for People Magazine. She has written 13 books, including Brutal, which was a NYT bestseller, and The Onasis Women, which was the subject of a Dateline NBC Special. Her work has appeared in Vogue, Miami Herald, Boston Magazine, and more. She has been interviewed on C‑SPAN, Hardball with Chris Matthews, CNN, Extra and Access Hollywood.
Her first memoir, Curse of the Blumenthals, the history of one close-knit Jewish American family and their dark relationship with alcohol, from bootlegging arrests in 1920s Providence, a drunk driver killing six members of their family in 1935, and the 1954 murder of a Boston seamstress committed by teenager Ronnie Blumenthal, was be published Post Hill Press, in Spring 2026.
The mother of two sons and three grandchildren, she lives in Marblehead, MA with her husband Jack.
