Review by Booklist Review
Billie Holiday embellished and invented stories about her life, creating a persona to reflect her unique voice and profound artistry as a transformative jazz performer. Alexander, biographer of Sylvia Plath and J. D. Salinger, reveals another set of fabrications regarding Holiday, those spawned by racism, sexism, and resentment and weaponized by federal agents and the New York police as they tried to destroy her career--even assailing her on her deathbed. In a stringent and clarifying inquiry into the betrayals and abuse Holiday faced, and the triumphs she nonetheless achieved, Alexander chronicles the last harrowing year of the singer's tragically shortened life. He also tracks back to document the suffering that stoked her fatal alcoholism and her courage in defying the FBI by continuing to sing the haunting anti-lynching ballad "Strange Fruit" in spite of being surveilled, harassed, framed, arrested, and imprisoned for narcotics possession while being denied the cabaret card she needed to perform in New York clubs. Alexander delves into Holiday's loving affairs with women, disastrous relationships with duplicitous and violent men, sustaining friendships, and essential musical collaborations. In fluent command of an enormous amount of detail both enraging and awe-inspiring, Alexander vividly recounts Holiday's valiant and ravishing last recordings and performances as her health deteriorated but her conviction stayed strong. A portrait as affecting and indelible as Holiday's exquisite performances.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Biographer Alexander (Rough Magic) traces in this stellar and sometimes-devastating account the remarkable life of a "jazz legend" whose voice "had nothing to do with reality but everything to do with the truth," as poet Owen Dodson once put it. Using as a narrative frame the artist's final year--during which she dealt with cirrhosis of the liver and professional setbacks--Alexander flashes back to defining events of Holiday's life, including engaging in prostitution as a teen, struggling with alcoholism, spending stints in prison for narcotics possession, and entering into a string of abusive marriages, the last of which--to Louis McKay--lasted in name until her 1959 death, when he inherited her assets even though she'd planned on divorcing him. Despite such challenges, Holiday--who'd changed her name from Eleanora to the more commercial-sounding "Billie" in her late teens--emerges as an artist who felt most alive while performing and conveyed in her songs the often-dark truths of her life better than any journalist could. Chronicling Holiday's career, Alexander covers in meticulous detail her early successes; collaborations and friendships (she developed an especially close relationship with saxophonist Lester Young); and the music itself, including 1958's Lady in Satin, her penultimate album and a "masterpiece of longing and sorrow" made singular by her beautifully "damaged, tortured voice." The result is an excellent biography befitting of its inimitable subject. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A talented biographer paints a memorable portrait of an American master. Alexander, the author of biographies of J.D. Salinger, Sylvia Plath, and John McCain, revisits the story of the brilliant jazz singer Billie Holiday (1915-1959), concentrating on the final year of her life, which almost perfectly encapsulated the spirit of her turbulent success, ambition, and significant struggles with romantic relationships, alcohol, and drugs. Readers familiar with jazz will instantly recognize the title's reference to Holiday's most recognizable song, "Strange Fruit," the poignant anti-lynching anthem that met with mixed reviews from white audiences and warnings from the federal government against its performance. Alexander's evocative prose seamlessly complements the painstaking research that he conducted via interviews with contemporaries of Holiday, his thorough archival mining, and his use of never-before-seen material from private collections to distinguish the fact, fiction, and embellishment about Holiday's life that has been disseminated by music critics, early biographers, and Holiday herself. Though Alexander demonstrates an impressive knowledge of jazz, this book is not exclusively for music aficionados. He tells Holiday's story while delivering a cogent social history of America in the first half of the 20th century. The author incorporates published reviews of Holiday's performances, interviews she gave, and wonderfully composed vignettes of TV, radio, and recording performances, particularly the session that produced what Holiday considered her finest album and life metaphor, Lady in Satin (1958). That album "would come to represent a final capstone in a life that was defined by personal heartbreak eclipsed by a level of artistic achievement rarely witnessed in the world of popular music." Alexander demonstrates why--despite the disappointments, broken dreams and relationships, and personal failings--Holiday believed her life to be a triumph. He has written a tale as unique as Holiday's voice and, more importantly, given voice to the life of an American original. An extraordinarily fascinating book. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
