Two teenage girls type up lurid transcripts for Andy Warhol during the 1960s, and are transformed in the process Seventeen-year-old Mae likes to ride the escalators in New York's department stores, especially Macy's. Life's possibilities seem to open up for her there. She feels less alone and more connected to the world. It's riding the escalators she meets Daniel, almost a male ingenue version of herself, which soon turns into an unsatisfactory one night stand. The morning after, she falls into a discussion with Daniel's mother, who suggests she see a doctor. At the doctor's appointment, things take an unusual turn when she gets a job referral, typing, as it turns out, at Andy Warhol's factory. It's 1966. Mae feels she has an awkward personality and decides to drop out of school. Her home life is seedy and alienating, living with an alcoholic mother and Mikey, her mother's on-again, off-again boyfriend. At Warhol's factory she meets Shelley, a girl of similar age and background. The two are charged with typing up tape recordings of conversations between Ondine, a self-dramatising Factory habitue and “Drella”, Warhol's nickname (a mixture of Cinderella and Dracula). These conversations, along with contributions from other Factory “superstars”, will form a novel called "a". Mae and Shelley soon get caught up in the Factory lifestyle – parties and performances – until it all gets a bit jaded. Too much experience turns excitement and novelty into nausea. Their deep involvement with the tapes – listening to hours of the mad ravings of Ondine – makes them feel that they are indeed the true authors of "a". What a shock then to see it published without their name on it. Nothing Special is the debut novel from Irish writer Nicole Flattery, following on from her short story collection, Give Them What They Want. It's a strange yet absorbing book, written in an unsettling yet unique authorial voice. Mae's world is full of dinginess, morally limited behaviour, low expectations, bad sex and petty rivalry. She and her friend Shelly feel trapped in an existential funk – think Kafka in New York, stuck in a maze of frustrating dead ends. Or the damned souls of Sarte's No Exit, locked in a drab room for all eternity. Nor do they have a road map to get out – there are no ideas about education, marriage or career that might shine a light to salvation. They are imprisoned in an uninspiring eternal present. The ironic, almost nihilistic tone of Nothing Special feels like it was almost written by Warhol himself. The clipped, detached dialogue echoes Warhol's laconic wit and love of the banal, exhibited in his best book, From A to Be and Back Again: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. A strikingly original novel examining the limits of experience, perhaps an acquired taste for some, but an author to watch nonetheless. Nothing Special, by Nicole Flattery. Published by Bloomsbury. $29.99 Review by Chris Saliba Comments are closed.
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