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Bitter Crop

The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year

Author Paul Alexander
Read by Maya Days
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On sale Feb 13, 2024 | 12 Hours and 0 Minutes | 9780593825464
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A revelatory look at the tumultuous life of a jazz legend and American cultural icon

“A book written as only one artist could view another, with insight and sincere compassion.” —Sandra Cisneros, best-selling author of Woman Without Shame

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.
© Michael Lionstar
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 a documentary that appeared on American Masters 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. View titles by Paul Alexander

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A revelatory look at the tumultuous life of a jazz legend and American cultural icon

“A book written as only one artist could view another, with insight and sincere compassion.” —Sandra Cisneros, best-selling author of Woman Without Shame

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.

Author

© Michael Lionstar
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 a documentary that appeared on American Masters 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. View titles by Paul Alexander

Additional formats

  • Bitter Crop
    Bitter Crop
    The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year
    Paul Alexander
    9780593312520
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 11, 2025
  • Bitter Crop
    Bitter Crop
    The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year
    Paul Alexander
    9780593315903
    $32.00 US
    Hardcover
    Knopf
    Feb 13, 2024
  • Bitter Crop
    Bitter Crop
    The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year
    Paul Alexander
    9780593315910
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Feb 13, 2024
  • Bitter Crop
    Bitter Crop
    The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year
    Paul Alexander
    9780593312520
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 11, 2025
  • Bitter Crop
    Bitter Crop
    The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year
    Paul Alexander
    9780593315903
    $32.00 US
    Hardcover
    Knopf
    Feb 13, 2024
  • Bitter Crop
    Bitter Crop
    The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year
    Paul Alexander
    9780593315910
    Ebook
    Vintage
    Feb 13, 2024

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