No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene is 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.

Available from Penguin Random House

Adele Bertei is an author, director, performer, and musician, and resides in Los Angeles, CA. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, daughter of an Italian immigrant and a ballroom dance instructor. Her career in music began as singer/guitarist in a rock band called Peter and the Wolves, performing at longshoremen and biker bars in Cleveland. The premature death of bandmate Peter Laughner of Pere Ubu resulted in Bertei’s move to New York in 1977, where she quickly became a pivotal figure in a counter-cultural movement of art, film, music, and literature. She was an original member of the Contortions, produced by Brian Eno on the seminal No New York record.

As author, her first book Peter and the Wolves is a short memoir of her rock and roll education via legendary Cleveland musician Peter Laughner, released by Smog Veil Records in November, 2020. Titles include Why Labelle Matters published by the University of Texas Press in March, 2021. Twist: Tales of a Queer Girlhood published by ZE Books in 2023, and Universal Mother (Sinéad O’Connor) released by Bloomsbury in 2025. No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene was released by Faber & Faber in March 2026 in the UK, and by Beacon Press in the USA.

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.