Wishing on the Moon: The Life and Times of Billie Holiday by Donald ClarkeMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Thought I’d learn a bit about Billie Holiday. I’ve not been a big fan, but I appreciated her style, her approach to, as the author says in this book, sing a bit behind the beat. I always pictured her as being a bit slurry and slow from something like cough syrup. And the author provides plentiful stories that say that while that was her style, she also had drug use and hard living weighing on her. It was interesting that the author compiled many, many stories from different sources that illustrated the good and the bad parts of her personality. You probably couldn’t come up with an adjective that didn’t describer her behavior at one time or another. Sybil with musical style.
The book is driven by interviews from many different sources. The author notes repeatedly that some of the details were suspect given the length of time that had passed from events described to the interviews, and many of the interviewees were obviously mistaken. You also get themes that stand out. I’m not sure the author intended for these themes to be repeated so much, or if their choice was more selected based on who was interviewed. This aspect of the book felt directionless. The topics I heard repeatedly were details about her drug use, her often violent sex life, her family (especially her mother), and, near the end, her finances were repeatedly discussed. Often after reading a biography I have a new respect for the subject and I think how good it would have been to meet them. With this one, I have respect of Lady Day as a talented scrapper, but she didn’t seem the kind of person that I’d want to meet. Too much mean with the good. As for the book, I'd have preferred a bit more focus on set themes, and/or some editing out the repeated stories. There are times an event is described through different interviewees' eyes, and perhaps because I listened to this on audio I found it somewhat confusing. Overall, the book seems quite thorough, but getting a firm grasp on the subject remains elusive.
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