Twist An American Girl A Memoir Adele Bertei by Adele Bertei 9781736309346, 173630934X instant download after payment.

"The mystery is how I managed to survive, & whether or not Maddie Twist remains alive & well & living like Brel in Paris, or beyond."

Adele Bertei's memoir Twist threads together the tapestry of her troubled childhood in the 60s & 70s, through the eyes of her alter ego Maddie Twist. Her beautiful mother suffers delusions of grandeur brought on by schizophrenia, bringing wonders & horrors to the Bertei home. Soon, Bertei & her 2 younger brothers become wards of the state of Ohio & by the time she is of middle school age, Maddie Twist has moved through—or run away from—two Cleveland foster homes & a detention home for teenagers.

At the Marycrest School for Wayward Girls, she finally finds some stability, but after she is caught kissing another girl, she's on the run again, this time landing herself in a maximum security reformatory school for girls, all before her 15th birthday. With each new posting, Maddie discovers sanctuary & solidarity amongst her peers—the outcasts, while adapting to fit her surroundings, & steadily gaining trust in her own voice. As Maddie Twist ages out of the system & finds herself with a surprising new community, her only constant is a ribbon of music that weaves itself around her heart, as a beacon towards another life. She can sing, & she is certain that will be the thing to save her: "If there really is a God, well then, that God must be music."

In frank prose without an ounce of self-pity, Twist is an episodic survival of the fittest, navigating the crooked rivers of poverty, race, sexuality, & gender. It is a world of little girl gangsters, drag queen solidarity, wild roller-skating, & magical thinking. As the creator of the band the Bloods, the 1st out, queer, all-women-rock band, Bertei has made a career as a singer, songwriter, writer, & director. Bertei gives us a story of violence & madness, of heartbreak & perseverance, &, ultimately, redemption.