Billie Holiday: The Graphic Novel: Women in Jazz

I've read many books but nothing in my tenure has been quite like this tribute through words and pictures to Billie Holiday. Like LadyDay herself, who captured the very essence of melancholy with her voice, this graphic novel does the same. It is filled with profound suggestions of disappointed expectations as her daily reality. It goes without saying that Billie Holiday is one of the most important jazz singers, Black or White, to have ever lived. Here is an honest depiction of her fall and rise and slow decline due to misogyny, social injustice, and drug addiction without minimizing her talent and historic relevance. The drawings make the story refreshingly personal and achingly human.This book is a whole mood and I dare anyone to read without a bittersweet sigh at the end.Well done, Ms. Ebony Gilbert. You've done a great thing here and done right by Billie Holiday. Take a bow.

beautifully written and illustrated