American Diva

"American Diva is a marvel. The divas here all share a virtuosity that demands fierce labor and daring charisma. Divas use their voices and bodies to turn pain into pleasure and defeat into glory. One of Paredez’s great themes is that a diva can empower her audience—us—to reach beyond our ordinary selves. Diva ambition is potent and generous. It challenges other artists and defies cultural pieties. Deborah Paredez is the American Diva reborn as scholar, poet, and critic." - Margo Jefferson, author of Constructing a Nervous System

"In ten exquisitely crafted chapters, Deborah Paredez shows us how divas as diverse as her aunt Lucia, Rita Moreno, Aretha Franklin, and many others define our limitations and our aspirations as individuals, a nation, and a people—brown, Black, and queer. Too big, bold, beautiful, and messy to be confined within enclosures or by borders, they lead us somewhere outside, to the edge, through the abyss, to that transcendent space where we might experience something akin to freedom. Here is a book as ambitious, original, and beautiful as its subject." - Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Read Until You Understand

"Equal parts memoir, cultural criticism, and music history, Deborah Paredez’s eloquent and thought-provoking exploration of divadom radiates with the passion, color, and magnetism of the divas she adores." - Holly George-Warren, author of Janis: Her Life and Music

"Is it possible to breathe life into the slack mouth of a term that’s been both overused and misunderstood nearly since it became common two hundred years ago? Deborah Paredez proves it is. As Paredez expands the diva definition, she presents a new vision of American culture that is, in true diva fashion, multifaceted and brazenly alive." - Ann Powers, author of Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell