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(More customer reviews)I grew up listening to and admiring French pop music, always trying to sing along with the proper words, hoping to become immersed in the French language while studying it in high school. The songs of Edith Piaf were tops, oh so French, iconic. Her life as a free, though tormented, spirit, haunted me in the bohemian 1950s, and although I knew almost nothing of her real life, intimations of her living a louche and druggy existence abided and acquired a patina that seemed to be a widely held notion.
Carolyn Burke's biography of Piaf rubbed away decades of this fuzzy thinking. Reading it was like watching a burst of magnificent fireworks rear up into the night sky and release streamers of words and music that mesmerize. Burke's book gives us easy access to the world of this great talent with new depth and heart. She details the real events of the Little Sparrow's life, dispelling myths, focusing on Piaf's gifts of talent, generosity of spirit, enormous energy for love, life and expression with specific references to the words of her songs and their origins.
Here is Piaf's life drawn without sensational headlines--how she functioned as a force of nature, a sensual woman who was a tireless lover of men, a woman who pushed herself constantly to the edge of her energy store, a woman whose consequent ill-health caused her to make bad choices and become addicted to various medications. Burke's book delves into the complexity of Piaf's relationships with family, friends, songwriters, and lovers. The result is wholly memorable--a serious, yet entertaining and inviting book--the tiny woman behind the voice and songs still touching our hearts.
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