Tuesday Teaser: Lady Sings the Blues

There aren’t many books that capture your interest in the first few pages. The writing in Lady Sings the Blues is raw and a noticeable shift from the titles I’ve recently completed. Today’s Tuesday Teaser might hint at just what I mean. Read as Holiday talks about how she made money “scrubbing those damn white steps all over Baltimore”:

All these bitches were lazy. I knew it and that’s where I had them. They didn’t care how filthy their damn houses were inside, as long as those white steps were clean. Sometimes I’d bring home as much as ninety cents a day. I even made as high as $2.10–that’s fourteen kitchen or bathroom floors and as many sets of steps.

When I went into the scrubbing business it was the end of roller skating, bike riding, and boxing, too. I used to like boxing. In school they used to teach us girls to box. But I didn’t keep it up. Once a girl hit me on the nose and it just about finished me. I took my gloves off and beat the pants off her. The gym teacher got so sore, I never went near the school gym again.

Back to reading, y’all.