Melissa Rivers has written a memoir as one way to work through her grief for her mother, sparring partner and closest friend, Joan Rivers.
Crown Archetype announced that "The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth, Mischief, and Manipulation" will come out May 5, The Associated Press reported.
According to Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House, the book will feature jokes, stories and advice. Melissa Rivers said in a statement issued through Crown that laughter had "less side effects than Prozac" and was "a lot cheaper than therapy." She also said that she had written a book she hoped would make her mother laugh.
Joan Rivers died last September after she went into cardiac and respiratory arrest during a throat procedure.
A federal report on Rivers' death investigation said the New York City outpatient clinic where the 81-year-old comedian suffered cardiac arrest during a throat procedure didn't follow all the standard protocols, such as weighing her before administering the sedative Propofol.
Rivers died on Sept. 4 in a New York City hospital a week after her heart stopped during the outpatient procedure at the Yorkville Endoscopy center on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Reuters reported the Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services, the agency that released the report, as saying there was no record that staff at the center weighed Rivers before administering Propofol on Aug. 28 and there were inconsistencies recorded in the dosage of the drug.
It also said there were no records of medical consent for all the procedures performed. The report added that a doctor who was in the operating room was there without authorization and said physicians also failed to detect Rivers' deteriorating vital signs during the procedures.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.