Didn’t We Almost Have It All: In Defense of Whitney Houston Hardcover – February 1, 2022 by Gerrick Kennedy

Description

Author: Kennedy Gerrick

Package Dimensions: 0x229x788

Number Of Pages: 320

Release Date: 01-02-2022

Details: Product Description
A candid exploration of the genius, shame, and celebrity of Whitney Houston a decade after her passing

On February 11, 2012, Whitney Houston was found submerged in the bathtub of her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. In the decade since, the world has mourned her death amid new revelations about her relationship to her Blackness, her sexuality, and her addictions.
Didn’t We Almost Have It All is author Gerrick Kennedy’s exploration of the duality of Whitney’s life as both a woman in the spotlight and someone who often had to hide who she was. This is the story of Whitney’s life, her whole life, told with both grace and honesty.

Long before that fateful day in 2012, Whitney split the world wide open with her voice. Hers was a once-in-a-generation talent forged in Newark, NJ, and blessed with the grace of the church and the wisdom of a long lineage of famous gospel singers. She redefined “The Star-Spangled Banner.” She became a box-office powerhouse, a queen of the pop charts, and an international superstar. But all the while, she was forced to rein in who she was amid constant accusations that her music wasn’t Black
enough, original
enough, honest
enough.

Kennedy deftly peels back the layers of Whitney’s complex story to get to the truth at the core of what drove her, what inspired her, and what haunted her. He pulls the narrative apart into the key elements that informed her life—growing up in the famed Drinkard family; the two romantic relationships that shaped the entirety of her adult life, with Robyn Crawford and Bobby Brown; her fraught relationship to her own Blackness and the ways in which she was judged by the Black community; her drug and alcohol addiction; and, finally, the shame that she carried in her heart, which informed every facet of her life. Drawing on hundreds of sources, Kennedy takes readers back to a world in which someone like Whitney simply could not
be, and explains in excruciating detail the ways in which her fame did not and could not protect her.

In the time since her passing, the world and the way we view celebrity have changed dramatically. A sweeping look at Whitney’s life,
Didn’t We Almost Have It All contextualizes her struggles against the backdrop of tabloid culture, audience consumption, mental health stigmas, and racial divisions in America. It explores exactly how and why we lost a beloved icon far too soon.
Review
“In this stirring work, journalist Kennedy reexamines ‘all that Whitney was and all that she was never able to be’…the author both celebrates the legendary singer’s inimitable talent and offers a rousing critique of oppressive systems still at work today. This is a must-read for fans.”
―
Publishers Weekly, *starred* review

“The great strength of this book is that Kennedy—who sees Houston through the lens of the Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and LGBTQ+ movements o f the last decade—refuses to pass judgment. Instead, he seeks to understand Houston’s struggles as evidence of a woman who shouldered an enormous burden—not just as a pop icon, but as a deeply devout queer Black artist forced to inhabit an unforgiving premade identity…Thoughtful reading for Houston fans and music historians alike.”
―
Kirkus Reviews

“Kennedy’s winning argument invites readers to focus on Houston’s triumphs: the ceilings she broke and the pathways she paved. Particularly impactful is Kennedy’s work to locate Houston’s legacy in a historical-cultural context, retrieving, for example, the no longer-sung, racist third verse of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’—which she breathtakingly performed in 1991—and contemplating the meaning of a Black woman performing the national anthem at such a profound level.”―
Booklist
About the Author
Gerrick Kennedy is an award-winning journalist, cultural critic, and author based in Los Angeles. Kennedy is the author of
Parental Discretion Is Advised: The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap. His writing ha