Description Few jazz singers have become icons like Billie Holiday. In With Billie , we hear the voices of those people who knew Billie best: 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 -- contrary to myth -- knew what she wanted and what really mattered to her. Julia Blackburn has pieced together an oral history of this jazz great, creating a unique and fascinating view of an astonishing woman. About the Author Julia Blackburn is the author of three books of nonfiction, Charles Waterton, The Emperor's Last Island , and Daisy Bates in the Desert , and of two novels, The Book of Color and The Leper's Companions , both of which were shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She lives in England.