Penny Kiley: Atypical Girl – Punk rock, Liverpool and trying to be normal (Polygon)

Friday 6 March

6-7.30

It's 1977, and punk rock has just hit Liverpool. The legendary Eric's club is home to the city's rebels, posers and misfits. It's a place of attitude, adventure and new possibilities, and it changes lives. Some become pop stars; Penny Kiley becomes a music journalist.

The story traces Penny's relationship with the music scene from the turbulent political 1980s into the changing culture of the 21st century. Throughout these years, she never stops being a misfit, and the question remains: how do you navigate normal life when punk is dead and you don't know you're autistic?

Atypical Girl begins as a coming-of-age story and ends as a midlife reinvention. What unites them is a search for identity and the role that music plays in all our lives.

Featuring encounters with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, Paul McCartney, The Cramps, Jonathan Richman, Tracey Thorn and more.

Penny Kiley was Liverpool correspondent for Melody Maker during the post-punk years of the late 1970s and 1980s. She also wrote for Smash Hits and was pop columnist for the Liverpool Echo. She was diagnosed as autistic at the age of sixty.

'I love this book. I enjoyed every word, found many things that related directly to me and found it spoke to exactly my views of what punk means. It's also an incredible document of Liverpool.' Rachel Talalay, Director of Tank Girl and Doctor Who

'Fabulous….it really captures a moment that resonates strongly with me.' 

Andy McCluskey, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

'99% of memoirs are scattered with lies. File Atypical Girl in the remaining 1%.' 

Bill Drummond, Co-founder of the KLF, Writer and Musician

'A refreshingly feminine take on punk and the tribulations of growing up during an era that was psychologically and culturally disruptive … candour and a great deal of wit…loaded with charm.' Louder Than War