Bitter Crop by Paul Alexander
A revelatory look at the tumultuous life of a jazz legend and American cultural icon 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.
PAUL ALEXANDER is cohost of the highly rated WABC radio show with John Batchelor, Batchelor & Alexander. He has become a widely read political journalist in recent years, and his articles have appeared in George, Mirabella, The Advocate, and Rolling Stone. He is the author of biographies on Sylvia Plath, James Dean, and J.D. Salinger. In addition, his cultural reporting has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, New York, the Village Voice, Worth, Interview, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Out, The Nation, Cosmopolitan, Premiere, Gear, Travel & Leisure, the New York Observer, and The Guardian. During the fall of 2002, he was a Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780593315903 |
| ISBN 10 | 0593315901 |
| Title | Bitter Crop |
| Author | Paul Alexander |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Random House USA Inc |
| Year published | 2024-02-13 |
| Number of pages | 304 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |