*A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR | A GUARDIAN MEMOIR OF THE YEAR | A TELEGRAPH BEST MUSIC BOOK
OF THE YEAR * 'Chronicles in enthralling detail Madonna Louise Ciccone's path from
terrifyingly ambitious trainee dancer to pop colossus all the while placing her in a wider
social and cultural context.' GUARDIAN MAGAZINE 'Gabriel charts her extraordinary life
right through to pop icon. She deserves a biographer as meticulous intelligent and insightful
as Gabriel.' DAILY MAIL 'Madonna built the house in which nearly all female artists now live
. . . A Rebel Life brings home not just her obvious willpower and strength but her
fearlessness and sheer intelligence' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A fascinating take on one of music's
greatest icons' BELFAST TELEGRAPH 'It's a mark of Gabriel's skill that she has managed to
wrestle this complex sprawling eventful life into a book that rarely flags and conveys its
subject's wider significance without tipping into hagiography. We come to understand Madonna
the person as well as Madonna the concept: a woman who for a generation embodied female
artistic sexual and financial liberation.' GUARDIAN In this exceptional biography Pulitzer
Prize finalist Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest
female pop icon of the modern era: Madonna. With her arrival on the music scene in the early
1980s Madonna generated nothing short of an explosion - as great as that of Elvis or the
Beatles - taking the nation by storm with her liberated politics and breathtaking talent. But
Madonna was more than just a pop star. Everywhere fans gravitated to her as an emblem of a new
age one in which feminism could shed the buttoned-down demeanour of the 1970s and feel
relevant to a new generation. Amid the scourge of AIDS she brought queer identities into the
mainstream fiercely defending a person's right to love whomever - and be whoever - they
wanted. Despite fierce criticism she never separated her music from her political activism.
And as an artist she never stopped experimenting. Madonna existed to push past boundaries by
creating provocative visionary music videos films and live performances that changed culture
globally. Deftly tracing Madonna's story from her Michigan roots to her rise to super-stardom
master biographer Mary Gabriel captures the dramatic life and achievements of one of the
greatest artists of our time.
