Madonna: Like an Icon: A Candid Biography Exploring the Complex Personality and Legendary Drive of a Pop Superstar

Material Girl . . . Immaculate sexpot . . . Superstar . . . Mother . . . Kabbalah enthusiast . . . For three decades she has defied categorization. . . . She remains one of our greatest living pop icons.

Here is the groundbreaking biography that finally solves the mystery at the heart of Madonna's chameleonlike existence. Drawing upon scores of candid interviews with producers, musicians, collaborators, lovers, and friends, Lucy O'Brien's Madonna: Like an Icon explores the complex personality and legendary drive that have made Madonna the most famous female pop artist of our time. From her mother's premature death to Madonna's dynamic arrival on the New York club scene, from "Like a Virgin" to Evita and beyond, every stage of this dazzling star's life and career is brilliantly illuminated—the stereotypes deconstructed, the lies exposed, the artist examined, the legend celebrated.

Music critic Lucy O'Brien has contributed to many publications, including the Sunday Times (London), Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and Q. The author of She Bop and She Bop II, as well as acclaimed biographies of Dusty Springfield and Annie Lennox, O'Brien lives in London and teaches at Westminster University and the University of London's Goldsmiths College.