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Bitter Crop
The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year
Brief Description
Bitter Crop is an unconventional portrait of arguably America's most eminent jazz singer. Acclaimed biographer Paul Alexander 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...
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See moreA revelatory look at the tumultuous life of a jazz legend and American cultural icon
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Description
Bitter Crop is an unconventional portrait of arguably America's most eminent jazz singer. Acclaimed biographer Paul Alexander 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 limns Holiday as a powerful, ambitious woman who overcame her flaws to triumph as a vital figure of American popular music.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781837262410
Publisher: Canongate Books
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 04 July 2024
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Canongate Books
Edition: Main
Illustration: B&W photos throughout
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 36.0mm
Width: 159.0mm
Height: 240.0mm
Weight: 581g
Pages: 368
About the Author
Paul Alexander has published eight books, among them Rough Magic, a biography of Sylvia Plath, and Salinger, a biography of J. D. Salinger that was the basis of the documentary Salinger that appeared on PBS, Netflix and HBO. His nonfiction has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, Newsday, New York, the Guardian, The Nation, the Washington Post, and Rolling Stone. He teaches at Hunter College in New York.
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Bitter Crop
'Paul Alexander tells her story in a way that could put her soul and our questions to rest' Gloria Steinem Bitter Crop shows just what lay behind that tragic, transcendent gift' Sunday Times 'Magnificent' Irish Times Bitter Crop is an unconventional portrait of arguably America's most eminent jazz singer. Acclaimed biographer Paul Alexander shrewdly focuses on the last year of...PaperbackSold Out
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