RE-SISTERS

A fascinating exploration of three relentless women and their pursuit of creative independence.

In this skillful blend of memoir and biography, Tutti (b. 1951), who co-founded “a new genre of industrial music as part of the band Throbbing Gristle,” weaves her personal experiences into those of two radical women: electronic musician Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001) and medieval mystic Margery Kempe (c. 1373-1438). In 2018, the author was simultaneously working on a film adaptation of her acclaimed memoir Art Sex Music, creating the soundtrack for a Derbyshire biopic, and reading Kempe’s journals. These simultaneous projects led the author to numerous intriguing connections. Derbyshire, best known for her work on the Doctor Who theme song, lived a life unavailable to most women in the 1950s, working as an electronic composer and creative visionary at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop. There, she faced frequent strife with her male managers, who felt her music was “too lascivious” and “too sophisticated.” Kempe faced similar challenges by living outside expected female roles and enduring “the hypocrisy she witnessed among the clergy, who could take the moral high ground but bend the word of God to suit their carnal or political needs.” Tutti, as well, has always pushed the envelope of what it means to break boundaries, whether through music, art, or performance. In this illuminating portrait, the author brings into focus “a trinity of the sacred and profane, sinners and saints of a kind.” The compelling stories of these three women are compulsively readable, but it is the connections between them that make the book shine. Deftly, the author travels between eras to bring us a surprisingly universal story that showcases what it means to be a unique and often transgressive woman living outside of cultural norms. At the intersection of these three lives, we find an abundance of female fortitude and irrepressible spirit.

A brilliantly rendered symphony of overlapping stories that connects radical women across time.