About the Book
Named one of the most anticipated nonfiction books of 2026 by the New York Times
"I loved this book.… A revelatory perspective on a formidable artistic movement whose history has been left to a handful of (male) gatekeepers."—Tanya Pearson, author of Pretend We’re Dead
"A riveting and beautiful account."—Thurston Moore
An intimate insider's account of New York's most radical cultural revolution and the women who obliterated every barrier in their path
In 1975 a young queer singer from Cleveland meets Nan Goldin and joins her in New York's bombed-out downtown, where something unprecedented is brewing. At Max's Kansas City and CBGBs, in derelict lofts and underground clubs, a generation of visionary women artists is rewriting the rules of creativity, sexuality, and power.
Adele Bertei didn't just witness the No Wave explosion—she ignited it. As acetone organist for the Contortions and Brian Eno's assistant, she was at the epicenter when punk collided with post-punk, when Lydia Lunch screamed her first songs, when Kathy Acker was penning her transgressive novels, when Kathryn Bigelow was making her first films.
No New York reveals the untold story of the boundary-pushing women who made No Wave possible: Nan Goldin capturing flash-lit portraits of gender fluidity, Barbara Kruger deconstructing media, Kiki Smith exploring the body's mysteries, Lizzie Borden challenging cinema itself. While mainstream culture wallowed in sexism and homophobia, these artists created something fluid, fierce, and transgressive.
Raw and gripping, No New York takes readers deep into the artistic and sexual experimentation of an era when everyone read Jean Genet, quoted Antonin Artaud, and believed true expression mattered more than money or fame.
Includes 55 rarely seen images of iconic musicians and artists that capture the look and feel of the era. Images are from Bertei's personal collection as well as well-known artists and photographers like Nan Goldin, Richard Prince, Vivienne Dick, Michael Granros, Marcia Resnick, and Julia Gorton.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Heaven and Hell
Nan, 1975
Peter and Lester, 1977
The East Village
Surreal Vertebrates
Contort Yourself!
Grandma’s Hands
Love in a Blackout
Poète Maudit Mischief
Kiki
Contortions Part II
Paradise Lost
Idlewildly 3rd Street
The Nova Convention
Le Faux Garçon
Anti-Fashion
Where Have the Gazelles Gone?
NO-llywood
Dancing the Wild Step
Berlin to Rotterdam
Poppies and Poets
Girl Gang Dreaming
Bloods Light
Bloods 2.0
Lock Up Your Daughters
Liquid Sky & the Crack-Up
Cabaret to Compromise
He(art)Lost and Found
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Photo credits
About the Author :
Adele Bertei is a renaissance artist whose fearless creativity has shaped underground culture for decades. Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1955, she moved to New York in 1977 and became a pivotal figure in the No Wave movement. An original member of the Contortions, included on the seminal No New York album produced by Brian Eno, Bertei also starred in underground films including Born In Flames by Lizzie Borden; opened for writers like William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Kathy Acker; and toured with the Bloods—America's first openly queer all-girl band. She's contributed vocals to recordings from Thomas Dolby to Whitney Houston, and to international hits like “Just a Mirage" and "Hyperactive!" Her books include Peter and the Wolves, Twist: Tales of a Queer Girlhood, and Universal Mother. She lives in Los Angeles.
Review :
“An eccentric and energetic tour through a vibrant chapter of New York City music history.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A love letter to a punk/post-punk era and the female creatives who transformed gender and genre defiance into art.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A brutally honest memoir about surviving sexual assault, drinking and drugs, creativity, and finding your own way.”
—Booklist
“Essential for anyone interested in the history of this particular demi-monde. Bertei has new stories about every denizen of Lower Manhattan of the era and she spins them like a tiny, pugnacious Goldilocks.”
—The Wire
“No New York focuses on that fertile period in the mid-1970s when punk collided with art on the derelict streets of Manhattan . . . It’s romantic. There is a keen sense of yearning for the youthful possibilities of pre-gentrified New York, and a hint of wonder from Bertei that she was there when all of this stuff was new and cheap and possible.”
—Uncut Magazine
“Bertei catches the moment’s jagged excitement, all shadowy danger and bright possibility.”
—MOJO Magazine
“Highly enjoyable . . . We have been blessed by Bertei’s fluidity in moving from music to books.”
—SNACK
“It is a phrase from the eulogy that sums this lively and engaging book up best . . . ‘We were young and free and on fire to be.’”
—International Times
“Definitive [. . .] Writing with captivating poetic flair, unflinching honesty and vivid cinematic detail, this exceptional book can stand tall among the chronicles of this uniquely unfettered era.”
—Record Collector
“No New York is an utterly compulsive and passionate memoir of this mythic epoch where the true runaways and renegades of ground-zero punk colluded, communed, and conspired. A riveting and beautiful account, both radical and reflective, ultimately acknowledging the holistic power of faith to light the way forward.”
—Thurston Moore
“I loved this book. Part memoir, part cultural and musical biography, No New York offers a revelatory perspective on a formidable artistic movement whose history has been left to a handful of (male) gatekeepers. Adele Bertei paints an honest, unflinching portrait of New York and the No Wave scene in the ’70s, and its eventual demise at the hands of the AIDS epidemic, gentrification, drug addiction, and a parasitic music industry.”
—Tanya Pearson, author of Pretend We’re Dead: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Women in Rock in the ’90s
“An elegant and incisive chronicle of collisions and encounters with every meaningful artist and musician in 1970s No Wave New York.”
—Viv Albertine, member of the Slits and author of Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys
“Adele Bertei rips up the history of No Wave and starts again, recentering the women: fearless artists and confrontational performers who put body and psyche on the line. Written with feral elegance and a cinematic eye, this mash-up of memoir and cultural history feels like time travel: an entire era of the New York underground brought back to vivid life.”
—Simon Reynolds, author of Still in a Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers and the Reinvention of Rock, 1984-94
“A queer survivor’s tale: Adele Bertei reveals a lost Manhattan full of creativity, space, and danger.”
—Jon Savage, author of England’s Dreaming: The Sex Pistols and Punk Rock
“A taut, streetwise memoir of the downtown New York music and art scene that wealth and gentrification destroyed.”
—Neil Tennant, member of the Pet Shop Boys and author of One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem
“No New York is an important document about a criminally overlooked aspect of art history. This book sets the record straight and illuminates the power, glory, and atomic energy that was No Wave. It is a direct account from someone who was at the epicenter of the movement and is a story that is perhaps more relevant and necessary at our present moment in time. It’s also a page-turning, thrill-ride New York story, and right up my alley.”
—Michael Imperioli
