No Regrets
The Life of Edith Piaf
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Sympathetic . . . captivating . . . highly effective.” —Graham Robb, New York Review of Books
“Concise and gracefully written. . . . Burke surveys all [Piaf’s] mayhem with thoughtfulness and respect.” —James Gavin, New York Times Book Review
The iconic French singer comes to life in this enthralling, definitive biography, which captures Edith Piaf's immense charisma along with the time and place that gave rise to her unprecedented international career.
Raised by turns in a brothel, a circus caravan, and a working-class Parisian neighborhood, Piaf began singing on the city's streets, where she was discovered by a Champs-Elysees cabaret owner. She became a star almost overnight, seducing Paris's elite and the people of its slums in equal measure with her powerful, passionate voice. No Regrets explores her rise to fame and notoriety, her tumultuous love affairs, and her struggles with drugs, alcohol, and illness, while also drawing on new sources to enhance our knowledge of little-known aspects of her life. Burke demonstrates how, with her courage, her incomparable art, and her universal appeal, "the little sparrow" endures as a symbol of France and a source of inspiration to entertainers worldwide.
Carolyn Burke is the author of Lee Miller: A Life and Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy. She has taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz and Davis and at universities in France and Australia, where she was born. She now lives in California.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Following her biographies of photographer Lee Miller and poet Mina Loy, Burke offers this eloquent embrace of the famed French singer-songwriter, Edith Piaf. As a child, Piaf (1915 1963) grew up in a Normandy brothel run by her grandmother, then led a vagabond life, touring as a singer with her father's acrobatic performances. A Paris street singer in her teens, she gave birth in 1933 to a daughter who lived only two years. When she brought her "velvety vibrato" and interpretations of la chanson r aliste, the tradition of gritty, slice-of-life song-stories about the downtrodden, into an elegant club in 1935, "it was as if a guttersnipe had invaded the inner sanctum where sophisticates... sat drinking champagne," yet the audience was "electrified by her voice." An overnight sensation on radio a few days later, Piaf followed with recordings, films, and concerts. Tracing her rise to international fame, Burke details her tragedies and her triumphs, her marriages and her music, and her conquest of America from Carnegie Hall to the Ed Sullivan Show. As Burke links the singer's lyrics and life in this evocative portrait, raw emotions emerge, etched with Piaf's "poignant mix of vulnerability and defiance."
