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Overview
A revelatory look at the tumultuous life of a jazz legend and American cultural icon"A book written as only one artist could view another, with insight and sincere compassion." --Sandra Cisneros, best-selling author of Woman Without Shame In the first biography of Billie Holiday in more than two decades, Paul Alexander--author of heralded lives of Sylvia Plath and J. D. Salinger--gives us an unconventional portrait of arguably America's most eminent jazz singer. He shrewdly focuses on the last year of her life--with relevant flashbacks to provide context--to evoke and examine the persistent magnificence of Holiday's artistry when it was supposed to have declined, in the wake of her drug abuse, relationships with violent men, and run-ins with the law. During her lifetime and after her death, Billie Holiday was often depicted as a down-on-her-luck junkie severely lacking in self-esteem. Relying on interviews with people who knew her, and new material unearthed in private collections and institutional archives, Bitter Crop--a reference to the last two words of Strange Fruit, her moving song about lynching--limns Holiday as a powerful, ambitious woman who overcame her flaws to triumph as a vital figure of American popular music.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780593315903
- ISBN-10: 0593315901
- Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
- Publish Date: February 2024
- Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.35 pounds
- Page Count: 368
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