Rating: 
Summary: A superb evocation
Review: Reading David Margolick's book was a fascinating and intensely visceral experience. The writing evokes the subject, as if the book were a lyrical score telling the story behind Meeropol's political poetry that became Holiday's song. The author transports you to a searing episode from our past that still smolders today. I was grateful to have found and read Strange Fruit and it is powerfully imprinted in my memory.
Rating: 
Summary: HOW COULD A SMART LAWYER WRITE SUCH A DUMB BOOK?
Review: Stanford Law School educated lawyer David Margolick has appointed himself shyster for one of New York City's sleeziest historical figures of the 1930's and 1940's, Abel Meeropol, the guy who claimed he wrote southern author Lewis Allan's famous poem titled STRANGE FRUIT ("Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood on the root," etc.)It's a poem about a lynched Black man put to bad music (probably by Meeropol) and made famous in torch song renditions by Billie Holliday and Eartha Kitt (and others). The audacious Meeropol was no poet, but claimed he was, and even claimed copyright to Allan's poem. The fact is, Meeropol was a famous hustler, later noted for offering "shelter" to the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg and tearfully raising money to support his "cause" of "saving" the Rosenburg children (a New York judge put a stop to all this). Mr. Margolick's book is dull and poorly written, claiming sympathy for Billie Holiday and lynched Blacks in the South, but actually dripping with Crocodile tears and cynicism. It's amazing that a piece of crap like this could get into print, but the "Running Press" of Philadelphia has turned the trick, and offers the book for $16.95 ($25.95 in Canada). Don't buy it or read it. It's awful.
Rating:
Summary: Strange Fruit
Review: STRANGE FRUIT, caught my eye, as soon as I walked into the the bookstore, the cover, the title and subtitle hit me right away. I bought the book one day and finished reading it the next day. I liked it, because it was well-written, the subject matter is of interest,and I think that all too often this kind of material has been kept from the American public, for many reasons, one of which is that people do not want to be reminded about America's past history, especially its not so good. They might even call this revisionist, but how can you revive what has not been told, and how can you call it revisionist, when it is real, the truth, and not a changing of anything, but simply bringing it out of the closet and not keeping it hidden, just to perpetuate a rosy picture of America, while denying the not so rosy part of American history. This book needs to gotten out to more. We must learn to live with and accept our past, both good and bad and build upon it. Many aspects of life, depicted in this book, are still with us, and that is wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Fine and Mellow
Review: The late John Hammond, who literally listened to Billie Holiday's music until the moment he died, considered "Strange Fruit" to be the song that took the strange beauty he had discovered and nurtured and in making her art, took away her primitive integrity and aesthetic, and replaced it with inauthentic artiness, making her a celebrity for all the wrong (political) rather than the right (soulful) reasons. Strange Fruit is far from my favorite Billie Holiday song, but David Margolick is right in assessing it as the fulcrum of her career and in a strange way, of her location in the history of black America, the civil rights movement, the American left, the relationship of the left to jazz and of jazz to the American intelligentsia, and the tragic misunderings among all of the above and each of the above in relationship to the coarse country that gave them all bith. Margolick is one of the few remaining writers in America whose every sentence illuminates American culture. His is a quiet brightness, not a showy one, but my god can he write, with nuance and feeling, making prose do what Billie beauty once made do with sound. A great book from a writer whose feelingful, rich work at Vanity Fair shames the shallows where the rest of the publication's writers dwell.
Rating: 
Summary: Busman's Holiday
Review: This short book is a neat introduction to the world of 1940's jazz and Billie Holiday. It is brief enough so that you could probably finish it on the way to work. Billie Holiday has not yet been captured effectively in a full length biography, but this book is a step in the right direction. Margolick does not try to delve very deeply into Billie Holiday's artistry or her difficulties as a black woman trying to make it in a white-dominated world, but he hits some interesting highlights. If you like this, your next stop might be Angela Davis' Blues Legacies.
Rating:
Summary: Busman's Holiday
Review: This short book is a neat introduction to the world of 1940's jazz and Billie Holiday. It is brief enough so that you could probably finish it on the way to work. Billie Holiday has not yet been captured effectively in a full length biography, but this book is a step in the right direction. Margolick does not try to delve very deeply into Billie Holiday's artistry or her difficulties as a black woman trying to make it in a white-dominated world, but he hits some interesting highlights. If you like this, your next stop might be Angela Davis' Blues Legacies.
Rating:
Summary: an ACCURATE account
Review: This thought-provoking and well-researched book moves beyond the racism and anti-Semitism that have fueled myths, misconceptions, and inaccuracies about its subject for years. Unfortunately, we see many of those those inaccuracies lingering still in a number of popular forums. Do not be duped; read for yourself and learn the truth: 1) Lewis Allan is a PSEUDONYM for Abel Meeropol, a well-known and well-regarded high school English teacher and composer. He also wrote "The House I Live In" (music by Earl Robinson) which Frank Sinatra later made famous. Allan and Meeropol are THE SAME PERSON. 2) Meeropol and his wife LEGALLY adopted the Rosenberg children after their parents were executed and remained their legal guardians ever since. Both Rosenberg sons, Robert and Michael (who use the last name Meeropol) love and revere the Meeropols and consider them their parents. 3) The money to support the Rosenberg children was not raised by the Meeropols, but by a foundation, whose trustees included Shirley Graham Dubois, wife of civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois. The foundation existed PRIOR to the Meeropols' adoption of the children.
Rating:
Summary: Gee Baby, Ain't Margolick Good To Us
Review: This warm-hearted generous book captures the bittersweet beauty of Lady and all of her glory. In concise, translucent prose that sparkles, David Margolick tells of the song that forces Americans to face the stark and shared history that brings together black and white, jew and gentile. By honestly facing the wounds of racism and bigotry, prejudice and betrayal, Margolick offers a book that refuses to accept despair and embraces Lady's music as a noble expression of hope born out of pain.
Rating:
Summary: Gee Baby, Ain't Margolick Good To Us
Review: This warm-hearted generous book captures the bittersweet beauty of Lady and all of her glory. In concise, translucent prose that sparkles, David Margolick tells of the song that forces Americans to face the stark and shared history that brings together black and white, jew and gentile. By honestly facing the wounds of racism and bigotry, prejudice and betrayal, Margolick offers a book that refuses to accept despair and embraces Lady's music as a noble expression of hope born out of pain.
Rating:
Summary: An impressive charting of early efforts seeking justice.
Review: While Strange Fruit is a superb biography of singer Billie Holiday, its added focus on cafe society and civil rights issues charts the beginning of the movement and provides an important key to understanding the controversial ballad which became Holiday's signature tune and the start of Civil Eights efforts. In telling the story of the song's roots and popularity, this charts early efforts in the struggle for justice.
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