Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year
Bitter Crop benefits from a tight focus and a cinematic structure ... Alexander... captures some of the tragic beauty of Holiday’s life and art. But he also does justice to her innate toughness and survival instincts, and the work ethic that burned until her body finally gave out.
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Readers interested in Holiday the vocalist would be better served by [other] books. (The title of Mr. Alexander’s book is in poor taste) ... But Mr. Alexander pieces together some wonderful accounts of the singer by her close friends, to depict Holiday as resourceful and resilient.
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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.
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