“Martha Washington was so essential to troop morale,” said ABC News political commentator Cokie Roberts, discussing her paperback “Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation” (HarperCollins) on Tuesday at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Square. Soldiers would “cheer her” when she entered Valley Forge, and she cooked for, sewed for, and prayed with soldiers during times when cold, unfed regiments were threatening desertion. She risked her life, since the wife of the most famous Revolutionary War general was “prime hostage taking material” in British eyes.

Ms. Roberts went on to describe Betsey Loring, another heroine of Valley Forge. Loring kept British general Sir William Howe preoccupied in Philadelphia when he might have marched out and defeated the starving Continental army at Valley Forge. Loring did not act out of patriotism, though, Ms. Roberts said, but “sold her favors for a lucrative position for her husband with the British army.”

Ms. Roberts read some doggerel from the period:

Sir William he, snug as a flea,
Lay all this time a-snoring
Nor dreamed of harm as he lay warm,
In bed with Mrs. Loring.

Ms. Roberts described the loneliness felt by leading women of the time. Abigail Adams raised the children while John Adams was in Philadelphia “thinking great thoughts but nobody was paying him.” When the threat of a British attack loomed, John wrote Abigail, telling her, in effect, “If it really gets dangerous, take the children and fly to the woods.” Ms. Roberts commented in deadpan, to audience mirth, “Thank you, John,” for that great help.

Likewise Deborah Franklin helped run the postal service while her husband Benjamin Franklin worked in London as a lobbyist for Pennsylvania.

Franklin didn’t bother to come home when his only daughter got married, but did send a letter advising his wife to keep the wedding cheap. “Some things don’t change,” Ms. Roberts said to audience mirth.

The deeds of other heroines, such as Margaret Corbin and Rebecca Motte, were described. Wounded after taking over artillery fire when her husband was killed in battle, Corbin became the only Revolutionary casualty buried at West Point. When Motte was informed, “We hate to do this, but we need to burn down your house” to deprive the British of a bastion for defense, she unselfishly said, “No problem. I have these trick arrows” that burst into flame upon impact. The case for those arrows was handed down in her family and used to hold knitting needles.

Other women played a role in important political decisions. While he was president, George Washington went to tea in Philadelphia with intellectual Eliza Powel, who was instrumental in convincing the reluctant leader to run for a second term. In a letter, she appealed to his sense of history, duty, patriotism, and “as a women, she appealed to his sense of pride.” Powel wrote: “Your very figure is calculated to inspire respect and confidence in the people.” Ms. Roberts explained, to audience laughter, “He was a hunk.”

Ms. Roberts spoke of her difficulty in writing a book when sources by women are often scarce. Many women of the time did not leave written records, or their correspondence was lost or not saved or transcribed. It involved detective work to write the book, she said.

Ms. Roberts’s book helps to fill out the story of the Revolution by describing women’s vital contributions. She said someone joked she should follow around David McCullough, who recently wrote “1776” (Simon & Schuster), and announce, like radio host Paul Harvey, “And now – the rest of the story.”

Ms. Roberts also spoke about another important figure – her own mother, Lindy Boggs. After her father died, her mother took over his seat in Congress and went on to serve nine terms representing Louisiana. In her next job, her mother left her Bourbon Street residence to become U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, between 1997 and 2001. “I teased her [that] the costumes didn’t change: “guys in dresses,” Ms. Roberts said. Her mother had the most difficult job in the diplomatic corps, she said: representing President Clinton at the Vatican.

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MAILER’S MEMORIES At a brown-bag lunch hosted by Molly Barnes at the Roger Smith Hotel, Adele Mailer read from her book “The Last Party: Scenes From My Life With Norman Mailer” (Barricade Books). Ms. Mailer, who studied art with Abstract Expressionist Hans Hoffman, also showed slides of her painting and collages.

Ms. Mailer talked about her early relationship with Ed Fancher, a founder of the Village Voice. “We lived happily – but not ever after,” she said.

In 1951, she lived alone on 16th Street with her cat. After drifting off to sleep one night after 2 a.m., a friend named Dan Wolf called from Mr. Mailer’s apartment on East 64th Street and tried to convince her to come over and meet Mr. Mailer. The latter got on the phone and offered to pay her cab fare.

On the phone, Mr. Mailer asked her if she had read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Last Tycoon.” “No, I haven’t. Well, I mean not lately,” she said. He proceeded to read her a sentence from the book. “That’s beautiful,” she said, “especially the way you read it. What does it mean?” “I’ll tell you when you get here,” Mr. Mailer said.

Ms. Mailer read a chapter in which her blue-collar Latino parents invited their daughter and the young novelist over to dinner. “They even promised to read some of ‘The Naked and the Dead’ in anticipation of our visit.” Her parents’ basement apartment in Bay Ridge had a set of Dickens on the bookshelves, and a baby grand piano filling up a quarter of the living room. “Daddy was a pack rat, and one of the things he saved were rubber bands for those 101 uses. Dozens of them hanging on every doorknob.”

Mr. Mailer bonded with his future father-in-law over their shared interest in boxing. Her father got out a set of boxing gloves from the closet and the two boxed a little before dinner in the small room. Her father knocked over a lamp. Her mother later said to Mr. Mailer, “You know, I probably shouldn’t mention this, especially to you, but I write a little, too. It’s nothing really, mostly poems. Believe it or not, I happen to have one right here.”

The book goes on to detail Norman and Adele Mailer’s relationship, which eventually descended into violence.

Seen in the audience were visual artists Leon Golomb, Charles Meyers, and Mark Knudsen; publisher Cynthia Navaretta; actress Lois Kagan Mingus; and Charles Mingus III. Geraldine Baron, who knows Ms. Mailer from her Actor’s Studio days, said the book would make a good movie with Salma Hayek or Penelope Cruz playing Ms. Mailer.