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.

Publisher Review

The unfinished life of Billie Holiday haunts us. In Bitter Crop, Paul Alexander tells her story in a way that could put her soul and our questions to rest — GLORIA STEINEM Alexander pieces together some wonderful accounts of the singer by her close friends, to depict Holiday as resourceful and resilient * * Wall Street Journal * * Ambitious. . . . In tracing Holiday’s longtime drug and alcohol use, which damaged her health and led to her spending nearly a year in prison for narcotics possession, Alexander also delves into the unwarranted sensationalism with which the press often covered these matters at the time * * New Yorker * * Chronicling Holiday’s career, Alexander covers in meticulous detail her early successes; collaborations . . . 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 * * Publishers Weekly * * The first major Holiday biography in more than two decades, Bitter Crop benefits from a tight focus and a cinematic structure. Alexander sets vivid scenes as he moves through the closing months of a life that was difficult from the start, weaving in detailed flashbacks to provide context for where Holiday found herself during her final act. * * Boston Globe * * A talented biographer paints a memorable portrait of an American master * * Kirkus Reviews * * A quietly gripping read * * Harper’s Magazine * * Making it as real as if you had been there, Paul Alexander has done an incomparable job bringing to life both elements of his title. He shows us the malice and ignorance of Billie’s accusers and eventual killers, the love and support of friends, and her own courage and purity of heart. A must- read for all lovers of the immortal Lady Day.” — DAN MORGENSTERN In Bitter Crop, Paul Alexander . details the ‘perennial hardships’ of Lady Day’s life but argues that she finally triumphed as one of America’s greatest singers. . . . Engrossing and moving. . . . As a writer, [Alexander], too, is a stellar performer, using his considerable writing skills to help readers experience the emotional tenor of Holiday’s turbulent life. His book is quite special-authoritative, highly readable and filled with vivid scenes * * New York Journal of Books * * A talented biographer paints a memorable portrait of an American master. . . . 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. . . . [Alexander] tells Holiday’s story while delivering a cogent social history of America in the first half of the 20th century. . . . [Alexander] 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.” * * Kirkus (starred review) * *