Description
| Product ID: | 9781526612120 |
| Product Form: | Hardback |
| Country of Manufacture: | GB |
| Title: | Nothing Special |
| Authors: | Author: Nicole Flattery |
| Page Count: | 240 |
| Subjects: | Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945) |
| Description: | Select Guide Rating ''A wry, witty and wonderful novel from a brilliantly captivating storyteller'' JOSEPH O''CONNOR''Nothing Special casts such a stylish and transportive spell . . . I’ll never again ride an escalator without thinking of this book'' SLOANE CROSLEYIn the late 1960s, Pop artist Andy Warhol set out to make an unconventional novel by following a cast of his most famous characters around New York, recording their conversations with his tape recorder. The twenty-four one-hour tapes were transcribed by four women: The Velvet Underground’s drummer Maureen Tucker, a Barnard student Susan Pile, and two young women.In Nothing Special, Nicole Flattery imagines the lives of those high school students: precocious and wise beyond their years but still only teenagers, living with their mothers but working all day in the surreal and increasingly dangerous world of Andy Warhol’s Factory, and learning to shape and reshape their identities as they navigate between their low-paid, grueling jobs and their lives at home, in a time of social change for girls and women in America. This blistering, mordantly funny debut interrogates the nature of fantasy and reality, voyeurism and language, and celebrity and the construction of identity. Within the framework of Andy Warhol’s surreal world, Flattery asks us to consider at what point does the creation, and consumption, of our public selves turn us into something we don’t recognise?PRAISE FOR SHOW THEM A GOOD TIME''A masterclass . . . Bold, irreverent and agonisingly funny'' Sally Rooney''Announces the arrival of a brilliant talent'' Financial Times''Explores difficult questions about self-worth, agency and intimacy with thrilling sharpness'' Sunday Times''Demands repeated reading'' Jon McGregor AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023_______________'A blade-sharp coming-of-age novel' SPECTATOR'Confirms Flattery as a bracingly original writer' IRISH INDEPENDENT'In enviably elegant prose, she manages to be both arch and deadly serious' LOUISE KENNEDY_______________A wildly original debut novel about two young women navigating the complex worlds of Andy Warhol's Factory, and coming of age in 1960s New YorkNew York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother's sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol. Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement. Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae's life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her. Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story about friendship, independence and the construction of art and identity, bringing to life the experience of young women in this iconic and turbulent moment. _______________PRAISE FOR SHOW THEM A GOOD TIME:'A masterclass . . . Bold, irreverent and agonisingly funny' Sally Rooney'Announces the arrival of a brilliant talent' Financial Times'Explores difficult questions about self-worth, agency and intimacy with thrilling sharpness' Sunday Times'Demands repeated reading' Jon McGregorA 2023 HIGHLIGHT FOR: THE TIMES * TELEGRAPH * STYLIST * GQ * GUARDIAN * HARPER'S BAZAAR * GOOD HOUSEKEEPING * WATERSTONES * i-D * IRISH TIMES * HUFFINGTON POST UK |
| Imprint Name: | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Publisher Name: | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Country of Publication: | GB |
| Publishing Date: | 2023-03-02 |