Garland In A Minor Key

Garland in a minor key
By Steven J. Sanders

This review is for: Judy Garland: The Other Side Of The Rainbow by Michael Freedland

This is one of the most poorly written and researched Garland biographies. I
started reading with great trepedation, due to snippets I'd read previously. The
author has no real sense of Judy Garland, and is devoid of any perspective or
insight. What's more, his work is strewn with inaccuracies, false dates,
misspellings and wrong-headed conclusions. It seems when he has an interview
subject at hand (or the offspring of a deceased person who was actually present
for whatever incident he is discussing), he gives the incidient inordinate
importance and an excess number of pages in the book. As a primarly exmaple, his
far too lengthy 'coverage' of Judy's controversial Town & County nightclub
engagement goes on for dozens of pages when a concise two pages would have
sufficied. An author doesn't necessarily have to have a passion for the subject,
but at least enough interest to delve beneath the surface, and at least make an
attempt for the book's primary subject to come alive on the page and present
facts (not merely wrong-headed conjecture). This book offers no real insight
into Garland, and presents no more than a one-note portrait of a complex,
vibrant, complicated and sometimes troubled mega-talent. He never scratches
beneath the surface and, by the end of the book, you know less about Judy
Garland than you did before you started. It's a book filled with info culled
from clippings, interviews with sometimes fascinating people but his pedantic
approach to the subject and his lack of knowledge in knowing what to ask beneath
the obvious presents a third-rate book. While the book doesn't do Judy justice,
it hopefully is such a slapdash, minor work that it will be forgotten as soon as
the last page is read. The author had a solid opportunity to present a fresh
biography of a hugely talented and complicated and conflicted woman, but fails
to deliver on all counts. It's an empty, unsatisfactory biography and not at all
worthy of Judy Garland. My greatest surprise is that he got a book deal for this
pedantic, poorly written and researched biography. If nothing else, it proves
the enduring appeal of Judy Garland -- something the author fails to understand
or impart to the reader on any level. As a disclaimer, I must acknowledge that
I'm the author of "Rainbow's End: The Judy Garland Show."

Garland In A Minor Key published here courtesy of Steven Sanders.