“Madonna: A Rebel Life” is a biography by Mary Gabriel that provides an intimate look into the life of Madonna, one of the most influential pop icons¹². The book celebrates the seismic influence of the boundary-breaking artist¹.

Madonna Ciccone, who once declared she was going to be the most famous woman in the world, started her journey in the dystopian streets of Manhattan with $35 and no lodging¹. She left behind her strict Italian family in Michigan for a dancer’s life at Alvin Ailey¹. She absorbed the poetry of Anne Sexton, the strength of Frida Kahlo, the fervor of Blondie and the Pretenders, and practiced the drums “endlessly” along to Elvis Costello records¹. She wrote her first song, “Tell the Truth”, in a borrowed Queens studio in the basement of an abandoned synagogue, which she described as a “religious experience”¹.