Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
I Will Survive is the story of America's "Queen of Disco." It is the story of riches and fame, despair, and finally salvation. Her meteoric rise to stardom in the mid-1970s was nothing short of phenomenal, and hits poured forth that pushed her to the top of the charts, including "Honey Bee," "I Got You Under My Skin," "Never Can Say Goodbye," and the song that has immortalized her, "I Will Survive," which became a #1 international gold seller. With that song, Gloria heralded the international rise of disco that became synonymous with a way of life in the fast lane - the sweaty bodies at Studio 54, the lines of cocaine, the indescribable feeling that you could always be at the top of your game and never come down. But down she came after her early stardom, and problems followed in the wake, including the death of her mother, whose love had anchored the young singer, as well as constant battles with weight, drugs, and alcohol. While her fans always imagined her to be rich, her personal finances collapsed due to poor management; and while many envied her, she felt completely empty inside. In the early 1980s, sustained by her marriage to music publisher Linwood Simon, Gloria took three years off and reflected upon her life. She visited churches and revisited her mother's old Bible. Discovering the world of gospel, she made a commitment to Christ that sustains her to this day.
Editorials
Kirkus Reviews
A tired and preachy autobiography from one of the first queens of disco.This is the kind of celebrity autobiography that serious readers have come to dread—the "become famous, hit bottom, find God" kind. We're told all about Gaynor's "dark" past, which included two abortions, drug use, and marital problems, but all this has become rather trite. Gaynor's tendency toward cliché is only compounded by the extremely poor detail that is given about any of these experiences. The abortions are mentioned without anything about the discovery of pregnancy; the drug use seems limited completely to marijuana—rather minor in an age in which cocaine and especially crack have taken a much more serious toll. Gaynor is also unable to turn the camera outward, with her analysis of disco music and its impact on popular music in general limited to a few pages. What hampers this autobiography beyond anything else, however, is Gaynor's relentless proselytizing for her newly found Christianity. While normally a reader might feel happy that a person who had suffered had found solace through religion, Gaynor's endless insistence that only through Jesus can one find salvation is egregiously offensive. Even her own brother, one of two of her siblings to join the Nation of Islam, is depicted in the book as being brushed off by her for rejecting Christianity. How this jibes with Gaynor's admission that her own husband is not yet born again is unclear. All of this, on top of the conversations that she claims to regularly have with God (in which the Almighty is an active participant), seems just a little too crackpot for believability.
It's ironic that Gaynor states, "There's been a lot of interest in a seventies revival in recent years"; if there were not, this book might never have been published.