Publishers Weekly
★ 03/25/2024
Richards, a former background vocalist for Whitney Houston, debuts with an electrifying tale of Ella Fitzgerald in the years before she was discovered on “Amateur Night” at the Apollo Theater in 1934. The story begins in 1932, when 15-year-old Ella and her family struggle to get by during the Great Depression. Her mother, Tempie, carries the burden of supporting the family financially as a laundress in Yonkers. Tempie’s interracial marriage to Ella’s stepfather, Portuguese immigrant Joseph Da Silva, is burdened by his inability to hold down a job and his alcoholism. Meanwhile, Tempie encourages Ella to pursue her dream of becoming a dancer, pinning her own dashed hopes on her daughter. After Tempie dies suddenly from injuries she sustained in an accident years earlier, Ella, who is physically and sexually abused by Joseph, runs to her Aunt Virginia’s home in Harlem. Her quest to make it out of poverty meets one major obstacle after another, and she soon becomes a numbers runner and a lookout girl for a local brothel. Her struggles continue after she’s sent to a racist reformatory school in Upstate New York for truancy, though she finds refuge in singing and eventually manages to escape. Richards’s research brings the sights and sounds of 1930s Harlem to vivid life, and she portrays Fitzgerald’s troubling teen years with care and sensitivity. Readers will be grateful for the chance to feel so deeply acquainted with “The First Lady of Song.” Agents: Regina Brooks, Serendipity Literary; Jeff Kleinman, Folio Literary. (May)
From the Publisher
(Diane) Richards, a former background vocalist for Whitney Houston, debuts with an electrifying tale of Ella Fitzgerald in the years before she was discovered on “Amateur Night” at the Apollo Theater in 1934…Richards’s research brings the sights and sounds of 1930s Harlem to vivid life, and she portrays Fitzgerald’s troubling teen years with care and sensitivity. Readers will be grateful for the chance to feel so deeply acquainted with “The First Lady of Song.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“With Ella: A Novel, Diane Richards has blended her literary magic with the sonic boom of Fitzgerald’s life, poetically resurrecting the great vocalist’s journey, while also re-imagining the parts misunderstood or previously left blank. The result is not just a mesmerizing work of historical fiction, but also the rebirth Ella Fitzgerald truly deserves.” — —Kevin Powell, Grammy-nominated poet and Tupac Shakur biographer
Thank you, Diane Richards, for giving us Ella, a suspenseful and heart-wrenching novel. Ella Fitzgerald’s mother, Tempie, saw what might be possible for her first-born when she instructed her to 'make something beautiful for the world.' Ella Fitzgerald certainly did that, as do you." — —Sheila Williams, author of Things Past Telling
"An extraordinary novel about an extraordinary woman. I had no idea what Ella Fitzgerald endured – what a remarkable real-life CinderELLA story! Diane Richards’ beautiful novel pays fitting homage to the First Lady of Song!" — —Brendan Slocumb, author of The Violin Conspiracy
"Diane Richards’ Ella: A Novel is a gem ... superbly imagined, and convincingly rendered. The language sings. This is a page-turner that immerses the reader in Ella Fitzgerald’s heartbreaking world of Depression-era Harlem, and its energy, its music, and its dancing, which fuel a young girl’s dreams of stardom." — —Diane McKinney-Whetstone, author of Our Gen
Library Journal
04/01/2024
DEBUT Richards's fictionalized biography focuses on the tumultuous and triumphant early life of jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. Before she becomes famous, Ella is a girl from Brooklyn who just wants to dance. That dream almost comes to a screeching halt when her mother dies while Ella is still a teenager, causing Ella to move in with her aunt in Harlem. This is during the rise of the Harlem Renaissance, and Ella is soon surrounded by jazz and dance and swing. However, even here, she encounters forces that seek to confine her to a circumscribed life. As Ella fights for all that she holds dear, she is given one chance—one night—to rise to the occasion and grab her dream. Focusing exclusively on Fitzgerald's teenage years, Richards, the executive director of the Harlem Writers Guild, shows the sheer determination and fortitude that the young future star had to marshal as she pushed to reach her goal. The world was infinitely stacked against her, and yet, time and again, readers see young Ella scrap and fight to live, and change, her life. VERDICT Those who enjoy jazz and swing music and fictionalized biographies will be interested.—Laura Hiatt
JUNE 2024 - AudioFile
This novel imagines jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald's harsh early life. In 1932, at age 14, Ella is impossibly dreaming of stardom as a singer. In 1948, she makes that dream a reality by appearing on Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town." Overall, narrator Alexandra Grey's distant tone and staccato intonation detract from the emotional punch the story deserves. However, she captures the rhythms of Harlem's Black vernacular through the dialogue of young Ella, her family, and neighbors. Ella's white step-father, Joe, has a harsh, demanding voice, especially when he's expecting Ella to fill her mother's role after her unexpected death. Other voices are well developed as Ella supports her family by running numbers for the Mob and survives incarceration as an "ungovernable adolescent." N.E.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2024-04-05
Stardom did not come easily for Ella Fitzgerald.
Richards delivers a straightforward yet heartbreaking fictional account of the difficult years Fitzgerald endured prior to her discovery, and ultimate success, as one of the most popular and recognizable voices of the 20th century. She spent her early years in Yonkers, New York, intent upon perfecting—and becoming known for—her dance skills. When the Great Depression puts her family in a precarious financial situation, 15-year-old Ella rebels against the limits placed on her freedom to pursue her choreographic dreams, but the death of her mother kickstarts a series of awful events that test her determination and perseverance. After escaping the abusive and sexually predatory behavior of her stepfather, Ella seeks refuge with an aunt who lives in Harlem. Her journey through the next years is marked by poverty and frustration as well as casual and brutally intentional racism…and a growing self-realization that song is the force that sustains her through life’s hardest times. Jobs in Harlem’s bustling underground economy provide Ella with money, street smarts, and shelter, but truancy and implication as a witness in a mob killing provide her with a trip to a New York State reform “school” for girls. Richards’ chronicle of the torture and abuse meted out to the institution’s residents—to young Black women in particular—is revelatory and places Ella’s eventual triumphs in a larger context. Richards, herself a former backup singer for Whitney Houston, provides an extensive list of resources she consulted in piecing together Fitzgerald’s early life. Scenes ranging from street-corner dancing, ballroom routines, numbers running, and life in a Depression-era Hooverville make it easy to envision a movie treatment for this deep dive into the forces shaping an extraordinary talent.
A remarkable life in song honored in prose.
