Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery. My thanks to Tabitha Pelly for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my review copy via NetGalley.
About the Book
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.
Format: eARC (240 pages) Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publication date: 2nd March 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction
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My Review
Nothing Special is a coming of age novel set in 1960s New York in which the author imagines the lives of two young women – Mae and Shelley – caught up in the hedonistic world of Andy Warhol’s studio, known as The Factory. It became the place to be for artists, musicians, socialites and wannabe performers. The book brilliantly captures the art scene of New York of the period, a time of sexual experimentation, drug-taking, non-stop parties and pushing the boundaries of convention.
Teenage Mae is something of an outsider. She has a troubled relationship with her mother and the only person she is really close to, or who looks out for her, is her mother’s sometime partner, Mikey. Mae says things others wouldn’t dare, or even think. One such occasion brings about the end of her relationship with her only schoolfriend. Alienated, she drops out of school in favour of aimlessly wandering the streets of New York City or riding the escalators of Macy’s department store.
A chance encounter brings her to The Factory where she is given a job as a typist – typing being the only thing she excelled in at school – and is befriended by Shelley, a fellow typist. The girls form a bond over their shared desire to escape from a life of boring convention. Or at least that’s what Mae believes as Shelley, although presenting herself as a runaway, is noticebly reticent about her family background.
Initially Mae is employed typing up fairly humdrum documents, mainly letters requesting money written in the name of the rich girls who hang around the loft space of The Factory. When Mae joins Shelley transcribing the tapes which will form the basis of Warhol’s book, a, A Novel, she views it as a sign of her specialness. Mae comes to believe she is playing a key role in producing something important, not realising that her role will only ever be peripheral. However, until that point she is drawn into a frenzied, hedonistic lifestyle where anything goes. When understanding dawns, it brings disillusionment and a feeling of worthlessness. ‘The prospect of success, the possibility that I could have become known through these typewritten pages: it now seemed like an obscene, perverted dream…’
Although I was familiar with Andy Warhol and some of his art, I had no idea he had written a novel and knew nothing about the nature of the book or that it was based on a series of taped conversations, reproduced verbatim complete with pauses, repetitions, etc. I had also never heard of ‘Ondine’ (the stage name of actor Robert Olivo), one of the people who appears on the tapes. So, thank you, Google. I think this put me somewhat at a disadvantage although we do, through Mae and Shelley’s reaction to what they are listening to, get a sense of the explicit, sometimes disturbing and voyeuristic nature of the material. I had some sympathy with Mikey’s no-nonsense response to Mae’s description of the work she’s engaged in as ‘writing’. “Who is on the tapes?”, he asked. “Friends, people like that.” “Recording your friends,” he leaned back. “That doesn’t sound like writing, Mae. It’s eavesdropping. It’s surveillence.” I have to say Warhol, the figure to whom everyone gravitates, comes across as self-absorbed and manipulative, taking advantage of people’s desire for their ‘five minutes of fame’.
The author really puts the reader inside Mae’s head, allowing us to witness her sparky humour and rebellious spirit but also her neediness and frequent loneliness. For me, this is the standout aspect of the book. One of the painful things about her story is that we know pretty much from the beginning that Mae’s life will be one of disappointment.
Nothing Special is definitely not ‘nothing special’. It’s inventive, thought-provoking and original.
In three words: Sharp, provocative, intense
Try something similar: Ponti by Sharlene Teo
About the Author
Nicole Flattery is the author of the story collection Show Them A Good Time and the novel Nothing Special. She is the winner of a Post Irish Book Award, the Kate O’Brien Prize, the London Magazine Prize for Debut Fiction and The White Review Short Story Prize. Her work has appeared in The Stinging Fly, the Guardian, The White Review and the London Review of Books. She lives in Galway, Ireland. [Photo credit: Twitter profile]
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