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Nothing Special
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Description
In 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
Product details
| Published | Mar 02 2023 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 240 |
| ISBN | 9781526662545 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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I truly love Nicole Flattery's writing.
Sally Rooney, Author of NORMAL PEOPLE and CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS
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Exquisitely disorienting . . . Gorgeous . . . This is a story of a young woman and the pocket of stale air that separates her from the world and from herself, the static between authenticity and performance, fantasy and reality . . . Brave and effective.
The New York Times Book Review
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Flattery exhibits a keen eye for how often what looks like an escape hatch is another trap . . . a sneakily moving homage to human kindness.
The New Yorker
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Nicole Flattery [is] a raucously talented young Irish writer . . . witty, propulsive and darkly delightful to read.
The Economist
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Audacious, original and fully achieved – this is a remarkable novel.
Kevin Barry, author of NIGHT BOAT TO TANGIER
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I derive so much energy from Nicole Flattery's writing. Nothing Special casts such a stylish and transportive spell, perhaps it's better to dust off adjectives like “marvelous” and “fabulous.” I'll never again ride an escalator without thinking of this book.
Sloane Crosley, author of I WAS TOLD THERE'D BE CAKE and CULT CLASSIC




















