PublishedCanongate, October 2024 |
ISBN9781837262410 |
FormatHardcover, 368 pages |
Dimensions24cm × 15.9cm × 3.6cm |
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.
