{"id":21079,"date":"2026-10-15T16:01:01","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T16:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=21079"},"modified":"2026-10-15T16:01:01","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T16:01:01","slug":"holding-lightning-the-life-loves-and-art-of-whitney-houston-by-emily-lordi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/15\/holding-lightning-the-life-loves-and-art-of-whitney-houston-by-emily-lordi\/","title":{"rendered":"Holding Lightning: The Life, Loves, and Art of Whitney Houston by Emily Lordi"},"content":{"rendered":"

c.2026, Mariner\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>
\n$32.00\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>
\n336 pages<\/em><\/p>\n

By Terri Schlichenmeyer<\/em>
\nThe Truth Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n

Round and round they go in your head.<\/p>\n

Snippets of tunes, entire songs you loved decades ago, dance moves you copied and videos you never missed. Those things were essential to your youth, they were a soundtrack of your life, so read Holding Lightning<\/em> by Emily Lordi<\/strong> and learn about the woman whose music you can still remember at full volume.<\/p>\n

In the nearly 15 years since she died, Whitney Houston, says Lordi,\u00a0 has been \u201cwidely considered to be one of the greatest singers of all time.\u201d Her mother, Cissy Houston, and record executive Clive Davis are generally \u201ccredited for her rise.\u201d Her ex-husband is \u201cfrequently blamed for her fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Says Lordi, \u201cThis\u2026 frame has made it impossible to see how hard Whitney worked to become herself\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Houston was born in August 1963, the child of musical royalty. Her mother was a renowned back-up singer; her cousin was Dionne Warwick. The family was immersed in music from church to concert, and Houston happily took take her place among them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhitney\u2026 loved the sound of her voice,\u201d says Lordi, which is apparently rare for a singer. As Houston\u2019s talents grew, she became a \u201cdiva\u201d and that was important: \u201cshe understood what it meant to claim this superlative status as a Black woman.\u201d She was likewise focused and \u201cworked hard to develop the aptitude she\u2019d inherited.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also played hard: early in her career, she and her best-friend-turned-lover, Robyn, did drugs sometimes but it didn\u2019t affect Houston\u2019s work then. Houston was energetic, on top of her career, topping the charts, and she made it all look easy. It seemed as though she was everywhere, dancing in heels and using that amazing voice \u2013 and yet, her success brought criticism from those who questioned her musical choices and her Blackness.<\/p>\n

By the early part of this century, Houston was struggling. Substance abuse plagued her. She was \u201cstressed out all the time,\u201d seemingly refusing to fail but also ready to stop\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s called an earworm, when you just can\u2019t get a song out of your head, when it rolls around and around for days<\/em>. That\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen when you read Holding Lightning<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a fan, you won\u2019t mind. Whitney Houston\u2019s music is a good accompaniment to this book \u2013 and a needed one, since, aside from the occasional insight and surprising tidbit, author Emily Lordi doesn\u2019t offer much new about Houston\u2019s life here.<\/p>\n

Still, Houston\u2019s story is a classic tale of a rising and falling star, the kind that movies are made of. That doesn\u2019t make it any easier to read, nor is it easy to look away because Houston was (and still is) everywhere. Even though what\u2019s in this book may feel like it\u2019s all been covered before, even though there may be repetition, even though the narrative can lag some, you\u2019ll be left with earworms and sadness.<\/p>\n

That should make fans old and new eager to get ahold of Holding Lightning<\/em>. So find it and turn up the volume; here\u2019s a book to wrap your hands around.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

c.2026, Mariner\u00a0 \u00a0 $32.00\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 336 pages By Terri Schlichenmeyer The Truth Contributor Round and round they go in your head. Snippets of tunes, entire songs you loved decades ago, dance moves you copied and videos you never missed. Those things were essential to your youth, they were a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[20],"class_list":["post-21079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book_review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21081,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21079\/revisions\/21081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21079"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=21079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}