Madonnaland: And Other Detours into Fame and Fandom

When Alina Simone agreed to write a book about Madonna, she thought it might provide an interesting excuse to indulge her own eighties nostalgia. Wrong. What Simone discovered instead was a tidal wave of already published information about Madonnaand her own ambivalence about, maybe even jealousy of, the Material Girls overwhelming commercial success. With the straight-ahead course stymied, Simone set off on a quirky detour through the backroads of celebrity and fandom and the people who love or loathe Madonna.

In this witty, sometimes acerbic, always perceptive chronicle, Simone begins by trying to understand why Madonnas birthplace, Bay City, Michigan, wont even put up a sign to celebrate its most famous citizen, and ends by asking why local bands who make music thats authentic and true can disappear with barely a trace. In between, she ranges from Madonna fans who cover themselves with tattoos of the singers face and try to make fortunes off selling her used bustiers and dresses, to Question Mark and the Mysteriansone-hit wonders best known for 96 Tearsand Flying Wedge, a Detroit band that dropped off an amazing two-track record in the office of CREEM magazine in 1972 and vanished, until Simone tracked it down.

Filled with fresh insights about the music business, fandom, and what it takes to become a superstar, Madonnaland is as much a book for people who, like Simone, prefer dark rooms, coffee, and state-subsidized European films filled with existential despair as it is for people who cant get enough of Madonna.