Customer Reviews

Piaf, a Passionate Life

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This is undoubtedly the best of the current Piaf biographies, all of which I've read. Yet I must say that Simone Berteau's autobiography (about her life with Piaf), while comprised in facts to make herself more important, was a bestseller in France and is highly readable -- if you've read Bret's book FIRST to keep your wits about you while under "Momone's" influence.

I truly think this is a definitive book about Piaf. It is very honest about her faults and qualities. If you are only going to read one, this is the place to start. I do not understand some of the more negative reviews as I found it very good reading and even handed about the subject.

The subtitle, "A Passionate Life," epitomizes everything Edith Piaf believed in and stood for. Perhaps because of her impoverished childhood, in which even a small kindness meant everything, Piaf grew up craving attention and love. Abandoned by her mother, she grew up in Pigalle, doing whatever she could to stay alive and find happiness, however fleeting. Uneducated and unloved, she developed few, if any, inner resources, intellectually or emotionally, to deal with the fame that was to become her fate, and with her need for love, she was fair game for every manipulator and parasite who came her way.

Author David Bret spends little time on Piaf's childhood, concentrating instead on her career from its beginning in the 1930s until her death on Oct. 10, 1963. When she was still a teenager, Louis LePlee, a sixty-year-old gangster and pervert who peddled drugs and flesh, invited her to try out at his nightclub and he quickly signed her to her first real job. When he was shot dead not long afterward, however, Piaf herself became a suspect and was interviewed at length by the police. When the scandal died down, she was mentored (and loved) by Raymond Asso, Paul Meurisse, and others. Jean Cocteau, who adored her, persuaded her to act in several plays and films. Marcel Cerdan, "the love of Piaf's life," is just a small part of the story here. Following his death, which, for a time, was devastating to her, she had many new lovers, eventually marrying twice.

During World War II, she miraculously managed to stay on the good side of the Germans, visiting internment camps to sing for the imprisoned French soldiers, ultimately helping three hundred prisoners out of the stalags, out of France, and to the Unoccupied Zone. She survived car crashes, a host of medical problems-rheumatism, acute agoraphobia, intestinal adhesions, pneumonia-overdoses of prescription drugs and serious addiction to alcohol and drugs. At the end of her life, at 46, she married a man in his twenties, and those who saw them together, could see the genuine love between them.

Those who have enjoyed the incredibly emotional film of "La Vie En Rose," with Marion Cotillard, may be disappointed by the fact that much of this book is a discography, explaining how and when her famous recordings and films were made and who wrote them. Bret seems to have attempted to record every possible piece of information about her professional life, and he has done this effectively. Piaf's friendship with Yves Montand, whom she mentored, and with the great Marlene Dietrich stand out as human moments in this otherwise straightforward presentation about Piaf and her legacy. She devoted her life to passion, always at the expense of reason, but she lived her life her way, and as she sings so famously, "Je ne regrette rien." Mary Whipple

La Vie en Rose (Extended Version)

This is a reprint of the book Bret published in 1998. The only updating that I noticed is that film tributes from 2003 and 2007 have been added to the list of film tributes at the back of the book. So, on page 21, Bret says that Cocteau's papers "will not be made available to the public until the year 2004." Also, on page 133 he says that no recording of Piaf's 1956 Carnegie Hall concert has come to light, though it is on the 2004 2CD set "Au Carnegie Hall 1956-1957."

Still, the book is very good overall. The previous reviewer who called it "a very poorly written book" was lying; it is well written, as anyone can verify by looking at some pages on Amazon. It also contains a lot of information that I hadn't seen elsewhere, such as that Theo Sarapo was a homosexual. I also liked the fact that many songs were described, often with excerpts and translations.

Bret reports a number of interviews with people who knew Piaf, so this is unique information. In other places I would have liked to know what was the evidence for various statements, but all the books on Piaf make lots of statements without citing any evidence.

I noticed two minor errors. On page 136 Bret says that in "Une dame" a woman is sent to prison for killing the man who has abandoned her, whereas in fact nobody is either killed or goes to prison in that song. On page 207, in the text of "A quoi ça sert l'amour," "insincères" should be "insensées." But these are isolated slips and don't change the fact that the book is very good overall.

I have been an Edith Piaf fan for around 20 years and have read other books and articles on her life. This book is enjoyable, informative, and well written. Before I bought it, I noticed an extremely critical review that said the writing was poor and there were grammatical errors and misspellings. Whoever wrote this review did not note that David Bret is English and/or does not know that the British spelling of certain words differ from the American spelling. I haven't noticed grammatical errors except for common ones that are even made by highly published articles such as confusing the use of "which" and "that." As for comments in the first person, these are found in direct quotes of individuals interviewed or read by the author. Perhaps this critic has written a competing book, which would explain his or her attack. I recommend this book highly.

This was a very poorly written book! It read like a high school book report - there were even spelling and grammatical errors! I especially found the author's first person comments very awkward and intrusive. I was very interested in finding out more about Piaf, but reading this book was painful in the extreme!

Thank you so much for shipping out this book in such a timely manner. I enjoyed reading it and it was in the condition you described. Thank you.