Adrianne Geffel A Fiction

Celebrated music critic and cultural historian David Hajdu unravels the mystery of a one-of-a-kind artist, a pianist with a rare neurological condition that enables her to make music that is nothing less than pure, unmediated emotional expression. Her name is Adrianne Geffel, praised as the "Geyser of Grand Street" and the "Queen of Bleak Chic." Yet despite her renown, she curiously vanished from public life, and her whereabouts remain a mystery to this day.

Hajdu pieces together her story through the memories of those who knew her, inspired her, and exploited her--her mother, father, best friend, producer, critics, teachers--in this slyly entertaining work of fiction. Adrianne Geffel is at once a piercing satire, a vividly twisted evocation of New York in the 1970s and 80s, and a strangely moving portrait of a group of characters both utterly familiar and like none we've ever encountered.

Adrianne Geffel was a genius. Praised as the "Geyser of Grand Street" and the "Queen of Bleak Chic," she was a one-of-a-kind artist, a pianist and composer with a rare neurological condition that enabled her to make music that was nothing less than pure, unmediated emotional expression. She and her sensibility are now fully integrated into the cultural lexicon; her music has been portrayed, represented, and appropriated endlessly in popular culture. But what do we really know about her? Despite her renown, Adrianne Geffel vanished from public life, and her whereabouts remain a mystery to this day.

David Hajdu cuts through the noise to tell, for the first time, the full story of Geffel's life and work, piecing it together through the memories of those who knew her, inspired her, and exploited her--her parents, teachers, best friend, manager, critics, and lovers. Adrianne Geffel made music so strange, so compelling, so utterly unique that it is simply not to be believed. Hajdu has us believing every note of it in this slyly entertaining work of fiction.

A brilliantly funny satire, with characters that leap off the page, Adrianne Geffel is a vividly twisted evocation of the New York City avant-garde of the 1970s and '80s, and a strangely moving portrait of a world both utterly familiar and like none we've ever encountered.