"One of the most original, amazing stories I've ever read" (Mary Gaitskill), iconic rock-and-roll musician Adele Bertei's memoir Twist is her harrowing and electric story of transforming trauma through art, pluck, and imagination, as told through the inimitable voice of her young alter ego, Maddie Twist.

From iconoclastic writer and musician Adele Bertei comes a wholly original hero's journey that wages war on the cliché of the "misery memoir." Set in a 1960s and '70s American neighborhood rife with poverty and violence, fatherless Irish mothers and Italian mobsters, and women crucified into madness by misogyny, Bertei speaks through her electrically alive avatar Maddie Twist to flip the victim script. Through her unshakable belief in imagination, poetry, music, and community, she transforms trauma into survival. The immediacy of Maddie's voice is a revelation, providing insight into long-enduring systemic problems without the scrim of adult analysis. In an age of lies and obfuscation, Twist is a sharp yet tender arrow to the heart of naked truth.

Bertei reveals what it's like to be a queer teen at a time when discovery could be fatal. Maddie peers deeply into the American psyche, refusing to consent to the systems of harm. Along the way we encounter an unforgettable schizophrenic mother, Catholic saints, West Side Story and Oliver!, poet killers, the abyss of rape, girl-gangsters and faux-pimps, teenage lesbian sex, racial tensions and misconceived divides, a drag family known as the Holy Maudlins, Vietnam vets in dark and light, cabaret, true family, rock and roll. And the ultimate saving grace: love.

A compelling personal history of queer culture from a working-class view and a glimpse into worlds yet unseen, Twist is good medicine: for readers who've experienced similar traumas, for teens caught in the foster care system, for the formerly incarcerated looking for hope, for writers grappling with how to tell their own stories. Most of all, it's for everyone seeking transportive experiences in art and on the page.

Formato	Tapa suave
Número de Páginas	250
Lenguaje	Inglés
Editorial	ZE Books
Fecha de Publicación	2023-03-14
Dimensiones	8.6" x 5.7" x 1.2" pulgadas
Letra Grande	No
Con Ilustraciones	No
Temas	Femenino, LGBTQ+

Bertei, Adele

Adele Bertei's music career began in Cleveland with Peter Laughner of Pere Ubu. She entered New York's downtown scene of the late 1970s as an organist for the Contortions and went on to form the Bloods, the first out, queer, all women-rock band. Bertei has appeared in several indie films, most notably Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames and The Offenders. As a singer/songwriter, she has toured with, written songs for, and recorded as a backup vocalist for a diverse group of artists including Tears for Fears, Thomas Dolby, Sandra Bernhard, Culture Club, Scritti Politti, Whitney Houston, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Sheena Easton, Oleta Adams, Lydia Lunch, the Pointer Sisters, Matthew Sweet, and Sophie B. Hawkins. Bertei charted top twenty internationally with featured leads on Thomas Dolby's "Hyperactive!" and Jellybean's "Just a Mirage." Bertei is the author of Peter and the Wolves, a short memoir of her rock and roll education.