No New York

“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