Bitter Crop

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

Reviews

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."