Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song [Paperback]

David Margolick (Author), Hilton Als (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 23, 2001

Recorded by jazz legend Billie Holiday in 1939, "Strange Fruit" is considered to be the first significant song of the civil rights movement and the first direct musical assault upon racial lynchings in the South. Originally sung in New York's Cafe Society, these revolutionary lyrics take on a life of their own in this revealing account of the song and the struggle it personified. Strange Fruit not only chronicles the civil rights movement from the '30s on, it examines the lives of the beleaguered Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol, the white Jewish schoolteacher and communist sympathizer who wrote the song that would have an impact on generations of fans, black and white, unknown and famous, including performers Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, and Sting.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Margolick is a contributor to Vanity Fair and the former National Legal Affairs Editor for the New York Times. A four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, he is the author of Undue Influence and At the Bar. He lives in New York City.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (January 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060959568
• ISBN-13: 978-0060959562
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #435,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Margolick is a long-time contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He has held similar posts at Newsweek and Portfolio. For fifteen years he was a legal affairs correspondent for the New York Times. In October, Yale University Press will publish "Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock," a study of the iconic photograph taken outside Little Rock Central High School during the desegregation crisis of 1957. His prior books include "Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink" (Knopf) and "Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song." (Harper Collins).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars STRANGE FRUIT is no more than an appetizer, February 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song (Paperback)

I was glad to see the announcement for this book, an essay on Billie Holiday's landmark song, "Strange Fruit." Margolick does a good job of describing the song's origins, its performance by Holiday and its initial reception by audiences and critics.

Unfortunately, there is little analysis of the song's impact on the African-American community or on American society in general. While the narrative is presented well, the commentary is often superficial: "Some African Americans...disliked the song because it portrayed blacks as victims. Others literally feared the song, thinking that far from enlightening people, it would stir up racial hatreds and actually lead to a new wave of lynchings." But which of the many views was dominant? Margolick provides some educated guesses but no real evidence. We see how the song affected particular individuals but not how it influenced the cause of civil rights.

Moreover, the purpose and scope of the book are never made clear. As a biographical essay, STRANGE FRUIT omits much of the context we would need to understand Holiday and her life. As a social commentary, it fails to marshal evidence in a cogent or convincing way. The author presents no critical evaluation of the song itself, and the book is ultimately more a tribute than anything else.

The unusual length of the book also makes it hard to categorize. It's more than a conventional essay yet less than a full-length biography. While the comments of those who knew Holiday are generally interesting, Margolick's attempts to synthesize the material -- to make sense of it all -- often seem forced, incomplete or even contradictory.

STRANGE FRUIT is strangely unsatisfying. Readers who want to understand the song's impact will be left wanting additional evidence and a more thoughtful commentary.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tracking a legend, June 25, 2001

By 

Jayne MacManus (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song (Paperback)

There are few songs in the world that stop you in your tracks and render you speechless of mind and heart. Billie Holiday sang one of them. The combination of her signature smoky vocals and the stark lyrics of the song written by Abel Meeropol, a white Jewish schoolteacher in the Bronx, proved to be spellbinding. Its emotional charge stirred activists and intellectuals and even popular notoriety. Margolick's biography of the song is a slim volume but full of interest, well-written and researched.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Short...But Worth the Read, November 7, 2011

By 

Franklin Johnson (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song (Paperback)

'Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song' does a great job of dispelling the myths about the song and pinpointing the truth about one of the most famous American songs of the 20th century. Not only that but it also does a great job at pin-pointing why the song still has a shroud of mystery about it, and how it impacted generations of African-Americans and whites.
It seems like a bit of light reading, but since the song is an important one, the book is a gem.