Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Carol Easton, who knew Jacqueline du Pre well, draws on this friendship to create a moving and insightful portrait of a singularly complex person. Jacqueline du Pre (the subject of the recent film Hilary and Jackie) was the music world's "golden girl", with what appeared to many to be a fairytale career and storybook marriage to Daniel Barenboim. But away from her cello, du Pre was achingly human. As a child, she was isolated by her phenomenal talent. As an adult, she was confined to the rarefied, insular concert world. And during the last fifteen years of her life, she lived in the inexorably shrinking world of the invalid, as multiple sclerosis took its toll. The Baltimore Sun said, Carol Easton tells this extraordinary story "with feeling befitting du Pre's own".

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In this sensitive biography an American woman who ``passed time'' with British musician Jacqueline du Pre (1945-1987) during the last years of her life helps explain why so many people fell in love with her persona as well as her incomparable artistry on the cello. Reminiscences of teachers, schoolmates, associates and friends quoted here show the shy, gawky, undereducated girl, the daughter of anti-Semitic parents who herself converted to Judaism and at age 21 married Jewish pianist-conductor Daniel Barenboim. We also see the invalid, the longtime sufferer of multiple sclerosis, the grown woman who giggled a lot, loved to tell and hear dirty jokes (the cruder the better) and who was impatient with hypocrisy, pretension and prejudice. A tragic story told with warmth and understanding. Photos. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Although the author knew and admired her, the Du Pre who is depicted here, the golden girl with the great smile who "was loved by everyone," is shallow and insensitive. There is no doubt that she was one of the great instrumentalists of our age--fiery and temperamental in her playing, and an extraordinary interpreter of the romantic repertory for the cello. Perhaps because her husband, Daniel Barenboim, and her brother and sister "declined invitations to contribute," the anecdotal contributions of others never quite get readers inside an individual who must have been more than the self-absorbed, childish woman who met her match in the multiple sclerosis that destroyed her. Perhaps the fault is that the writer knew her only in those last few years when she may very well have been quite different from her earlier self. In any case, neither the writing nor the characterization here help one to know Du Pre, either as a person or as a performer. -J. P. Ambrose, University of Vermont

Booklist Review

Easton takes a less romantic view of the late cellist's musical career and private life than most previous accounts. Du Pre was a child prodigy whose mature talent blossomed in her early adult years before her career and life were cut short by multiple sclerosis. While Easton takes a sympathetic view of her subject, she also exposes the more human elements of du Pre's tragedy and punctures the often saintly images that have characterized the cellist's reputation. Accounts of du Pre's tempestuous family relationships and of her marriage to conductor Daniel Barenboim add to a more complete portrait of the artist, as do the records of the cellist's earthy sense of humor and the reaction that du Pre faced when she converted to Judaism. Du Pre's psychoanalytic treatment, as well as the physiological progress of her disease, is also described in this well-balanced portrait that expertly covers artistic, medical, and psychological details. Index. --John Brosnahan

Kirkus Book Review

The extraordinary cellist (1945-87) struck down by multiple sclerosis in the springtime of her talent makes a fabulous figure in a compelling biography. Easton, for reasons that become clear, did not have access to du PrÉ's surviving family members or to her husband, Daniel Barenboim. She was, however, herself a close friend in the last years of du PrÉ's life and was invited by her subject to write this biography. The book was ""well under way"" at du PrÉ's death, although Easton at first resisted writing it because ""it would be too damned hard""--though she had earlier written biographies of orchestra leader Stan Kenton and movie mogul Sam Goldwyn. Within modest limits, she has had a certain success without giving us the big literary work that would attract a stylist to du PrÉ. To Easton, du PrÉ's life falls into three acts: her childhood and youth as a prodigy known for flaming performances and unbelievable maturity as an interpreter; her largely joyous, highly traveled marriage to Barenboim, himself a child prodigy as a pianist who was expanding his talent as a conductor; and the onset of her disease, loss of ability to play, and final years as an invalid. Called ""Smiley"" by her friends, du PrÉ lived for her cello from age five. She and it were one. It said everything she felt. With others, she was Smiley--really not there. This caused deep intellectual and emotional shortcomings, and even musical ones. However, absolutely everyone adored her childlikeness, humor, and great spirits. And many fellow musical superhumans thought she was the most ungodly gifted of them all: a big girl, her bowing arm pulled an intensely varicolored, rapturously supercharged, big tone from her cello that overrode any orchestra. The marriage to Barenboim, himself superintense and sleeping only three hours a night, remained legally alive until her death, although he set up a second family in Paris that du PrÉ knew nothing about. One wants more details, and something about the du PrÉ discography, but we are thankful for Easton until the big book comes along. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Carol Evelyn Easton was an American biographer. She was born in San Francisco and raised in Hollywood. She studied theater arts at the University of California, Los Angeles and worked as a freelance writer for years before deciding to write a biography. Her books focused on creative people in the arts. The first biography was Straight Ahead: The Story of Stan Kenton (1973), followed by The Search for Sam Goldwyn (1976), Jacqueline du Pre: A Biography (1989), and No Intermissions: The Life of Agnes de Mille (1996), which was named a New York Times Notable Book (1996). Carol Easton died at her home in Venice, California on June 17, 2021. She was 87.

(Bowker Author Biography)