From Julia Blackburn, an author whose ability to conjure lives from other times and places is so vivid that one suspects she sees ghosts, here is a portrait of a woman whose voice continues to haunt anyone who hears it. Billie Holiday’s life is inseparable from an account of her troubles, her addictions, her arrests, and the scandals that would repeatedly put her name in the tabloid headlines of the 1940s and 1950s. Those who knew her learned never to be surprised by what she might do. Her moods and faces were so various that she could seem to be a different woman from one moment to the next. Volatile, unpredictable, Billie Holiday remained, even to her friends, an elusive and perplexing figure. In With Billie , we hear the voices of those people–piano players and dancers, pimps and junkies, lovers and narcs, producers and critics, each recalling intimate stories of the Billie they knew. What emerges is a portrait of a complex, contradictory, enthralling woman, a woman who knew what really mattered to her. Reading With Billie , one is convinced that she has only just left the room but will return shortly. *Starred Review* Blackburn ( Old Man Goya, 2002) picked up the loose ends of a previous effort by biographer Linda Kuehl to chronicle the life of Billie Holiday, an effort that yielded 150 interviews with people who knew the jazz singer. Among those sharing remembrances are her godfather, friends, lovers, fellow musicians, producers, and critics. A woman recalls watching over Holiday in the House of Good Shephard reform school in New York. A black narcotics agent tells of being haunted by the harassment and harsh treatment of Holiday. Friends recall the strained relationship with her musician father, who, out of vanity, wouldn't acknowledge her. Others relate the genesis of Holiday's signature song, "Strange Fruit," and her belief that it provoked the wrath of the government. Included are poignant remembrances of her relationships--troubled and nurturing--with pimps, socialites, musicians, and actors, including Lester Young and Tallulah Bankhead. They speak of Holiday's drug abuse and sexual proclivities, her amazing talent and generous spirit, and her early death, at age 44. This is a much deeper and grittier look at Holiday's life than was rendered in her autobiography, the admittedly prettified Lady Sings the Blues . Fans will love Blackburn's honest portrait of the enormously talented singer. Vanessa Bush Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “This addition to the tide of Billie Holiday books is extremely welcome. Nowhere else is the context of her life and work so vividly captured.” -- Toni Morrison "At last, a portrait of the artist and person called Billie Holiday. This extraordinary book completes her story." -- Mike Figgis “Billie Holiday was — and is — a singer who stays in the mind of everyone who heard her.  Like all jazz musicians, she sang about who she was at the moment and during all that preceded that moment.  Julia Blackburn’s With Billie tells Billie’s own stories of that life and this book becomes part of the music.” -- Nat Hentoff Julia Blackburn is the author of several other works of nonfiction, including Charles Waterton and The Emperor’s Last Island , and of two novels, The Book of Color and The Leper’s Companions , both of which were short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her most recent book, Old Man Goya, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Blackburn lives in England and Italy. ONE The Record Sleeve When I first heard Billie Holiday’s voice, I had just turned fourteen. I was at a party and everyone was much older than me and very drunk. Their movements seemed to have been slowed down; even the way they opened and closed their mouths was too slow.There were two prostitutes at the party. One was a woman called Sally. She had short-cropped hair, but I can no longer find her face in my mind. She lived with a tall thin homosexual called Barry, who had huge front teeth and floppy black hair, and I can see him easily. They used to invite me over to their flat in Mayfair and they liked to show me a cupboard that was full of ropes and masks and whips. On one occasion when the three of us were having tea, a client dropped by, but Sally said she couldn’t do anything for himbecause she had a guest.She did take me out for an appointment with two American businessmen. We went to the Ritz and ate lobsters, which I had never eaten before, and I was shocked by the sound their claws made when they were cracked open. One of the men asked me how old I was and, when I told him, he panicked and ordered a taxi and sent me away with a book on sexual techniques as a present. Sally and Barrywanted me to sell my virginity. They used to telephone me and tell me about an old gentleman they knew and how easy it would all be and how much he was prepared to pay.I had never met the other prostitute at the party and I don’t know her name. She was plump and