Incisive, doggedly researched ... Tick...proves an ideal guide to Fitzgerald’s perpetual progress ... With few survivors of Fitzgerald’s era left to interview, Tick makes vigorous use of press coverage, yielding particularly fruitful results from Black newspapers and periodicals that covered seemingly every move the singer made ... This is a book that clearly took a long time to research and write; its insights are deeply ingrained, its observations carefully rendered rather than overstated ... Vivid.
Fitzgerald has proved to be a difficult subject for biographers ... Academic language creeps like mold into this biography ... Tick clearly reveres Fitzgerald’s music, but her prose is buttoned-up. She can’t quite transmit her enthusiasms or make her distinctions stick ... It’s poor sportsmanship, perhaps, to write about what isn’t in a book as opposed to what is. But even browsing a Sotheby’s catalog of Fitzgerald memorabilia auctioned in 1997 gives you a deeper sense of her personal style than Tick manages to convey.
Tick’s thoughtful and thorough biography traces Fitzgerald’s career ... Tick draws a picture of an idol who, regardless of the joy she gave, suffered from the neurotic notion that the crowds, like that first audience at the Apollo, could not be counted on to like her or her music.
Deeply researched ... Fitzgerald is the consummate artist in Tick’s telling, focused almost exclusively on her craft ... Tick does not dish gossip or delve overly deep into Fitzgerald’s private life, though she does cover a handful of major relationships.
Could serve as a master class in writing a contemporary biography. Tick has created a compelling narrative drawing on resources that were once hidden away, but are now accessible through 21st-century technological innovations ... Richly researched ... Significant.
Tick’s chronicling of Fitzgerald’s genius for intuiting what an audience wanted to hear, her 'courage and independence,' the sharp criticism she endured for her daringly innovative choices, and the ardent acclaim she earned as a pioneering Black woman artist and civil rights advocate coalesces in a defining, revelatory, and invaluable biography.
Throughout the book, Tick inspires readers to rediscover Fitzgerald’s musical genius, as she describes the singer continually reinventing herself to stay vital and relevant, a process that Fitzgerald never abandoned, even in her later years. This exploration of Fitzgerald’s life and career describes those personal relationships closest to her, but the book’s formal tone doesn’t convey a strong sense of the woman herself.