Surviving Mommie Dearest

Together in one volume for the first time: The harrowing #1 New York Times bestseller with a new preface, and its triumphant sequel.

Mommie Dearest is a memoir and exposé written by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of actress Joan Crawford. Published in 1978, it described her upbringing by an unbalanced alcoholic mother, whom she judged unfit to raise children. The book attracted much controversy, with many family friends denouncing it as fiction, but others claiming that it was a broadly accurate, if exaggerated account of Christina’s troubled childhood. It was turned into a film starring Faye Dunaway.

Jazz skills meet songwriting sensibility. And: Another extraordinary discovery from the music wonderland Sweden. The three women and two men of the band "Dearest Sister" - no, not "ensemble", "Project" or "quintet" - but "band", stand for a current phenomenon with their debut album "Collective Heart": young musicians with a broad horizon and a well-founded, jazz-influenced education, who do not use their skills to play jazz in the traditional sense, but a music that deals with the influences and themes of their own generation. But at the same time a music that deliberately does not want to be "pop", but rather sets a contrast to the type of modern mainstream music production and thus fulfills the longing of many listeners for authenticity, originality and emotional depth…

There is a great succession of musical discoveries coming out of Sweden, and it never ceases to amaze. The three women and two men forming "Dearest Sister", the newest member of the ACT Family of Artists, combine jazz skills with songwriting sensibility.