PAPERCUTS PRESENTS: Adele Bertei

Papercuts is delighted to host an evening with trailblazing rock musician, filmmaker, and memoirist Adele Bertei, for a conversation about her latest book,&nbsp;Twist.&nbsp;This event will take place on Sunday July 14 at 5:30 p.m., outdoors in the garden of the Loring-Greenough House (or inside, in case of inclement weather), located at 12 South St, Jamaica Plain, just a few blocks down the street from our shop!&nbsp;Bring your own lawn chairs or blankets for sitting! <a href="https://forms.gle/qodWjBiJHR7k1iEE8" target="_blank">RSVP HERE</a> Adele Bertei's band, the Bloods, based out of NYC during the early 1980s, is recognized as the first-ever band comprised entirely of publicly out gay women, and one of the U.S.'s first all-girl bands in general. She was also an original member of the Contortions, a no wave band featured on Brian Eno's seminal&nbsp;No New York&nbsp;album.&nbsp;Bertei's music career has also included frequent collaborations with Thomas Dolby including his international dance pop hit "Hyperactive!", and providing backing vocals for artists ranging from Whitney Houston to Culture Club to Tears for Fears. Bertei was a lead actor in Lizzie Borden's underground cult classic film&nbsp;Born in Flames,&nbsp;and in experimental filmmakers Beth and Scott B'sThe Offenders, which is now a part of the Museum of Modern Art's film collection.&nbsp;Reading prose and poetry, she opened for writers such as William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Kathy Acker among others.&nbsp;Her stories and essays have been included in the compilations&nbsp;The New Fuck You; Adventures in Lesbian Reading&nbsp;edited by Eileen Myles,&nbsp;It’s So You&nbsp;edited by Michelle Tea, and Evelyn McDonnell’s Women Who Rock. Twist,&nbsp;Bertei's new memoir, is a harrowing and electric story of transforming trauma through art, pluck, and imagination, as told through her young alter ego, Maddie Twist.&nbsp;Twist&nbsp;is both&nbsp;a personal personal history of queer culture from a working-class view, and an argument against the concept of the “misery memoir.” Praise for&nbsp;Twist: &nbsp; “Underground legend Adele Bertei’s roman a clef is like something out of the darkest pages of Charles Dickens. Her heroine Maddie Twist is born into a family racked by poverty, violence and madness and graduates to abusive foster care, the terrors of life as a teenage runaway and imprisonment in reform school. But Maddie is a survivor, as much Artful Dodger as she is victim. She rides the turbulent waves of the 1960s and early ’70s with reckless courage, buoyed by her careening high spirits and an almost mystic faith in poetry, music and the love of other girls.&nbsp;An unforgettable queer coming of age story and an inspiration to outsiders everywhere.” —Mary Harron, director of American Psycho, Alias Grace, and I Shot Andy Warhol &nbsp; “A veteran musician recalls her rough coming-of-age experiences in Cleveland in the 1960s and ’70s . . . A picaresque tale, full of vivid characters . . . Maddie narrates with a zest and objectivity probably only possible from a long temporal remove, and she excels at bringing readers deep into the difficult circumstances of her life . . . Throughout the book, Maddie comes across as curious, impulsive, and observant, fond of losing herself in books and brought to life by the music she hears—and creates. A powerful look at survival and redemption despite extremely challenging obstacles.” —<a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/adele-bertei/twist-american-girl/" target="_blank">Kirkus (starred review)</a>, Best Nonfiction of 2023 &nbsp; “Bracingly candid and stylishly written.” —David Smith,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/13/adele-bertei-twist-book-interview-bloods-lgbtq-rock" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> &nbsp; “Once ‘the Devil ran through’ her family, Maddie free falls from institution to institution, growing into her queerness and discovering her fate—that ‘God has to be music.’ This riveting novel/memoir by underground icon Adele Bertei situates the making of a survivor rebel against the background of the chaotic side of 1960’s America. An honest, hard times page turner filled with heart and revelation.” —Sarah Schulman, author of&nbsp;Let the Record Show&nbsp;and&nbsp;Conflict Is Not Abuse &nbsp; “A harrowing voyage through the cultural tornado of America in the latter part of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of a thoroughly 21st century girl. This book gives serious credence to the expression ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Very inspirational.” —Rufus Wainwright&nbsp;

Loring-Greenough House Garden

Papercuts Bookshop

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PAPERCUTS PRESENTS: Adele Bertei

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