Billie Holiday Was VERY Involved in Creating Lady Sings the Blues, 2

In Part 1 (see the Index), we examined some of the common arguments that are used by authors in and outside of academia to “prove” that Holiday was not responsible for the content of her book Lady Sings the Blues. We saw that some of the “evidence” is false, some is misleading, and that of all the many authors of writings about Billie, only John Szwed, for his insightful book on Holiday, took the time to actually research how her memoir was put together. Let’s now examine the remaining points that have been used to support the false idea that she did not write her book, as summarized by Matthew Sutton (continued from the first part of this essay):

“A postcard Holiday sent to her coauthor William Dufty almost a month after Lady’s publication, inquiring whether Dufty was still working on the book, demonstrates her detachment from the authorship of her autobiography.” FALSE AND INSULTING.

On Monday, July 23, 1956, while performing in Las Vegas, Billie sent a postcard to the Duftys and a greeting to their young son Bevan, her Godson. She rarely wrote letters so she begins by saying, “Don’t faint” from surprise at getting a postcard from her. She wrote as follows (I have not changed her punctuation):

Hi! Bill & Maely now don’t faint yes it’s me writing. Gee I miss you kids. Hows my God son Kiss him for me. Hey hows the book going there. You can’t get it out this way and its sold out in Chicago. If you can send me a copy as I havent read it yet ha ha. Louis sends regard

love Lady Day Billie Holiday

Translation: “How’s the book going there?” means “How is it SELLING there in New York?” Not, “Are you still writing it?” (For God’s sake, I can’t believe that I need to explain this!) She had been touring and had not yet seen the bookstores in N.Y.C. “You can’t get it out this way” means “The stores here in Las Vegas do not carry it.” Just before, she had performed in Chicago and checked the bookstores, so she knew that stores did carry it there, but “It’s sold out in Chicago,” which was a good sign.

Of course Billie was completely aware of when her book was published! She and Dufty had signed a contract with Doubleday on July 25, 1955 that stipulated that he would receive 35% of the money earned. They turned in a finished manuscript only about two months later, and on October 3, Billie signed the following agreement (under her legal birth name, Eleanora Fagan). She confirms that she has approved of the manuscript “page by page.” There is no specific reason to doubt that she did read every page, but even if you suspect that that is an exaggeration, she clearly had seen the manuscript, and she knew very well that it was scheduled to be published soon:

“I hereby release the book…” is simply legal language for “It’s ready to be published.” However, as you saw in Part 1, she then changed her mind after receiving a letter from her lawyer, and decided it needed further revisions. To sum up, the idea that Billie did not even know when her book was published is not only false, it is insulting because it suggests that she was totally ignorant about an important event in her life.

At the end of her postcard, she writes—this time I have corrected the punctuation—”If you can, send me a copy, as I haven’t read it yet— ha ha.” This sentence will need some explaining, so let’s move on to that point as worded by Sutton:

“…[S]ome in Holiday’s inner circle alleged she did not even read the book after its publication” MISLEADING

I speak now as author or coauthor of seven books: Before a book is finally published, you’ve gone through five or more drafts, you’ve agonized over what to include and what to omit, you’ve been asked by the publisher to make it shorter so it will be less expensive to print (that happened with Billie’s book as well), so you read it closely again with an eye for anything that could be deleted. Then, you’ve rewritten things to make them more clear, and to anticipate and avoid any possible objections or lawsuits, and then you’ve re-read the entire manuscript for the sixth or seventh time to do a final check for typos and so on. Do you seriously think that when the printed book is finally in your hands, you will say, “Great! I needed something to read this week and I’d love to spend my week reading this yet again”? I have Never sat down and read my books after they were published, and I am not unusual in that way.

What is really going on here is that Doubleday surely sent several copies of the book to Dufty, and possibly they sent Billie’s copies to him as well, or separately to her New York City address. But she was on tour, and as she mentioned, she hadn’t been able to find the book in Chicago or Las Vegas. She hopes that Dufty can mail her the book so that she won’t have to wait until she’s back home to see the published version. “Ha ha” means something like “I know that sounds silly, because I read the manuscript several times, but I can’t wait to see it in book form.” To sum up, it might be correct that she didn’t read the book right after it was published, but that’s very misleading, because she had read it many times before, and there is no need to read one’s book again as soon as it’s published.

(Similarly, people are always amazed when Sonny Rollins says he doesn’t listen to his own albums. But just as with books, by the time an album comes out you have heard every track a dozen times. When you finally get some copies of the published album, unless you’re obsessed with yourself, why would you want to sit and listen to it again? I certainly don’t.)

Szwed adds, “[Some] even questioned her ability to read, and quoted her one remark about never having read her own book—which has in fact been a standard dodge of many celebrities when they don’t wish to discuss or justify a topic in a coauthored book” (p.15). In other words, when people say they haven’t read their own memoir, that is often just an easy way to avoid answering questions from the press. In reality, they have certainly seen and approved the manuscript before publication, but as I noted, often they didn’t read it again when it came out in book form. So they can tell a kind of “white lie,” saying “Don’t ask me about it because I haven’t read it.”

Now, here is how Matthew Sutton summarized Billie’s role in writing her memoir:

“Lacking final approval of her own life story, Holiday was effectively shut out of the writing process…” FALSE.

By now you know that it’s absolutely clear that Billie was indeed involved in the writing process and editing of her life story. Anybody who says otherwise is depicting this brilliant woman as a fool who was easy to take advantage of. She was no fool. Besides, everyone who knew her said that her “voice,” her personality and way of speaking, were captured in the book. Szwed shows that she worked closely with Dufty every step of the way. And he notes that if one reads her printed interviews elsewhere (and I would add, if one listens to her radio interviews), it is clear that “this was really Billie Holiday speaking in the book” (p.14). Do you seriously believe that William Dufty, a white man from Michigan who had ancestry in Ireland and England, could have captured the authentic voice of this Black woman without her input?

Here is a photo of Holiday and Dufty working on the book:

Even though this photo was taken for publicity, to get people interested in the forthcoming book, it tells the truth of how they preserved her story. Dufty explained that she insisted on working together in person, rather than recording her memories and having him work from the tapes. She said that by interacting in this way, she sometimes was able to recall things that did not occur to her when she sat by herself in her home. And notice that she has pages in her hand. That was not the idea of any photographer. After Billie talked for a while, she liked to look over the pages that Dufty had typed, and make comments, add details, and so on. Reviewing the pages jogged her memory some more.

Szwed summarized the absolute facts of Holiday’s participation in creating the book as follows (on p.15 of his book). And he also notes that she did eventually read the published book as well:

She had certainly read Lady Sings the Blues, since she commented on many portions of it, both in galleys, at the insistence of Doubleday, and in published form, in her letters and in comments to the Duftys and to journalists. She also read reviews of the book and complained about some of them in detail.

A subscriber asked me, “But aren’t there questions about the accuracy of her book?” Yes, of course. There are questions about the accuracy of all autobiographies, even ones that have no assisting author. But as you saw, I have quoted the arguments about whether she wrote it, and not one of those arguments mentions the accuracy of the book. Accuracy is a completely separate issue which I will address in future essays.

Finally, I hope that as a result of this two-part essay, nobody will ever again say that Holiday had nothing or little to do with writing her memoir. But I know how stubborn people are, and how rare it is for people to really check their facts. And I have observed that for some unknown reason, many authors seem to like the idea that she didn’t know what was in her own book. So “I’m not holding my breath,” as they say, while waiting for people to change. But please, now that you’ve read these two essays, certainly you can put that idea to rest, for now and forever. Billie Holiday was completely involved in writing Lady Sings the Blues. That case is closed.

All the best,
Lewis