*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.
