Bitter crop : the heartache and triumph of Billie Holiday's last year / Paul Alexander.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2024Copyright date: ©2024Edition: First editionDescription: 353 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780593315903
- 0593315901
- Heartache and triumph of Billie Holiday's last year
Item type | Home library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Main Library | Biography | New | HOLIDAY, B. A377 | Available | 33111011244841 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
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.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-336) and index.
The Last Night at the Flamingo Lounge -- A Woman of the World -- Lady in Satin -- A Little Jazz History -- Bitter Crop -- When Your Lover Has Gone -- It Happened Out West -- Goodbye to the City of Lights -- The Whole Truth -- I'm Billie Holiday! -- The Death of the President -- Memory and Desire -- Farewell to Storyville -- Fade Out -- Angel of Harlem.
"A revelatory look at the tumultuous life of a jazz legend and American cultural icon"-- Provided by publisher.