Suits Me: The Double Life Of Billy Tipton

Reviews / Votes

'Fascinating ... this biography may make us think differently not only about the nature of gender but about our most basic perceptions of reality' - New York Observer Billy Tipton was a jazz performer who played in clubs throughout the Midwest of the US for nearly 50 years. Tipton never made the big time as a musician and ended up working as a booking agent in Spokane, Washington. Only with Tipton's death in 1989 was it revealed that the five-times-married father of three boys was biologically female. Diane Wood Middlebrook's biography describes the transformation of Dorothy Tipton, a white Oklahoman who was not allowed to play jazz because she was a girl, into Billy Tipton, a male pianist and bandleader. The author traces the life of this itinerant jazz musician over several decades and through changing constructions of gender. Middlebrook, whose biography of Anne Sexton was noted for its controversial use of tape recordings and notes made during the poet's psychiatric treatment, was approached by Kitty Tipton Oakes, one of Billy's former wives, to write this biography. She interviewed his/her friends, spouses, family members, and colleagues and found them to have different, yet universally sympathetic, readings of Tipton's gender. In addition to examining what gender is, Suits Me also asks to whom it belongs: the individual or the people who interact with the individual.' - Rebecca Brown, Amazon.co.uk Review 'This well researched biography avoids sensationalism in its perceptive portrayal of an artist...' - Publisher's Weekly 'A considerable achievement' - Telegraph 'This barely believable life is told with genuine care and without a trace of sensationalism' - Observer