Nothing Special
Autor Nicole Flatteryen Limba Engleză Hardback – 2 mar 2023
După succesul fulminant al volumului de povestiri Show Them a Good Time, unde Nicole Flattery s-a impus ca o voce ireverențioasă și surprinzător de originală, autoarea revine cu un prim roman care confirmă stăpânirea unei proze elegante și tăioase. Nothing Special ne transportă în New York-ul anului 1966, însă nu în lumina reflectoarelor, ci în penumbra studioului Factory, unde Mae, o adolescentă retrasă, primește sarcina de a transcrie înregistrările audio ale lui Andy Warhol. Această perspectivă inedită transformă actul banal al dactilografierii într-o poartă către o lume a excesului și a avangardei.
Subliniem modul în care Flattery reușește să captureze acea stare de detașare specifică tinereții; Mae observă cum viața personajelor celebre se transformă în text, în timp ce propria ei realitate devine tot mai difuză. Recomandăm această lectură pentru felul în care echilibrează rigoarea istorică a momentului cu o explorare psihologică profundă a voyeurismului. Imaginați-vă tensiunea și atmosfera boemă din Chelsea Girls de Eileen Myles, mutată într-un decor unde munca invizibilă a femeilor stă la baza unui produs artistic revoluționar. Dacă în Show Them a Good Time autoarea chestiona valoarea de sine și agenția feminină prin situații adesea absurde, aici ea ancorează aceste teme în efervescența și turbulența anilor '60, oferind un studiu fascinant despre cum se construiește identitatea în preajma geniului.
Stilul este unul evocativ, aproape hipnotic, evitând clișeele nostalgice pentru a prezenta o variantă a New York-ului care este, în același timp, fabuloasă și dezolantă. Este o experiență de lectură care nu se grăbește, lăsând personajele să respire în spațiul dintre cuvintele transcrise pe bandă.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 1526612127
Pagini: 240
Dimensiuni: 138 x 220 x 24 mm
Greutate: 0.38 kg
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Bloomsbury Publishing
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
De ce să citești această carte
Recomandăm Nothing Special cititorilor care caută o perspectivă proaspătă asupra mitului Factory și a lui Andy Warhol. Este un roman de formare captivant despre puterea observației și riscurile de a te pierde în arta altcuiva. Veți descoperi o poveste despre prietenie și independență, scrisă cu o inteligență sclipitoare, ideală pentru cei care au apreciat scriitura contemporană irlandeză și atmosferele urbane retro-chic.
Descriere
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'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
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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 York
New 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.
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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
A 2023 HIGHLIGHT FOR: THE TIMES * TELEGRAPH * STYLIST * GQ * GUARDIAN * HARPER'S BAZAAR * GOOD HOUSEKEEPING * WATERSTONES * i-D * IRISH TIMES * HUFFINGTON POST UK
Recenzii
[A] blade-sharp coming-of-age debut novel . . . [Flattery] captures the absurdity and the pain, the texture of city streets and the squalid luxury, and brings a deadpan wit to the whole sex and drugs and Pop-art scene
A raucously talented young Irish writer ... Flattery is witty, propulsive and darkly delightful to read
Sixties New York is vividly conveyed, but the triumph is in the capture of moody, prickly, ambitious Mae through whose eyes everything is seen . . . [A] witty and unique coming-of-age novel
The author of short story collection Show Them A Good Time is one to watch . . . Exploring the rift between their public and private selves, this darkly funny tale draws parallels between 60s New York and today
Flattery has a fine ear for dialogue . . . In fitting her complex, heartfelt, vexing characters into the spaces left where the names of Warhol's typists should have been, Flattery is finally giving those egos, or a version of them, a chance to tell their own story, in their own words
The assuredness of her writing belies the fact that Nothing Special - a tale of identity and purpose set in Andy Warhol's infamous Factory - is her inaugural novel . . . [Nothing Special] does an excellent job of evoking 1960s New York, and balances its ideas of voyeurism and longing expertly
This debut novel is that rare thing, an original, off-kilter coming-of-age story, in which life and art collide in unsettling ways
Nothing Special is as stylishly written as its predecessor Show Them a Good Time. Indeed there are shades of Saul Bellow, in her rendering of New York that 'shrieking cartoon hell' . . . [Flattery] deserves only praise
Nothing Special confirms Flattery as a bracingly original writer; her observations clear-eyed and cool-headed, never pretentious. Readers may be tempted to underline every other sentence in this striking debut from an exciting new voice'
Flattery demonstrates here how she can shape on a larger scale and be incredibly inventive in the process . . . [Her] willingness to be ugly and merciless on the page is what makes her work so relentlessly engaging
A riveting read about fame, myth-making and finding your own identity
Flattery is a keen observer of relational dynamics in groups of women, and how these connections can both support and strangle. Her characters feel complicated and real
If you've ever found yourself obsessing over Edie Sedgwick (her biography by Jean Stein is a must-read) then Nothing Special will be right up your street. Set against 60s New York and Andy Warhol's Factory, this is a coming-of-age story that conjures up the lure of the era
Nicole Flattery's treatment of determined, bewildered young women - as they discover the vast distance between how they are perceived and how they feel themselves to be - is brilliantly gloomy, droll and so out-of-body as to be real . . .They try on and take off their survival instincts like costumes, in a painful, beguiling, apt twist on art for art's sake. The authenticity of Flattery's work offers its own reassurance that sometimes art is good
There are many things to enjoy in Nicole Flattery's debut novel . Mae is an engaging protagonist with a wit about her coming-of-age struggles
Nothing Special evokes the same literary lost-girl vibes as recent bestsellers like Emma Cline's The Guest, but the narrative is wrapped around an intriguing exploration of art, work and fame.
A sharp portrait of New York's art scene in the sixties and one woman's place in it. Through inventive prose, Flattery writes into history the under-celebrated voices, and she does it in a masterful way. A superb novel
In enviably elegant prose, she manages to be both arch and deadly serious. Wonderful stuff.
Audacious, original and fully achieved - this is a remarkable novel
One of the most exciting releases of 2023 . . . A dizzying exploration of sex, freedom, art and voyeurism, seen through the coming-of-age of 17-year-old Mae. Deftly woven and captivating, it signals the arrival of a new literary talent
Told with dry wit and sharp observation, Nothing Special speaks in a profound and original way to our age of vacuous consumerism, our empty quests for self-discovery, and our parasitism on celebrity and trend . . . A bold and funny coming-of-age novel about the emptiness of the cult of self, the fetishisation of fame, and the aimless drift of late-stage capitalism
Flattery's sentences are astonishing. Their wit and ingenuity, the apt oddness of her metaphors, are addictive and relentlessly delightful, and then all of a sudden her language snaps into an exactness of feeling that knocks you sideways. A special, singular, blazingly original and truly achieved first novel
I couldn't put this razor sharp, darkly funny coming-of-age story down
A wry, witty and wonderful novel from a brilliantly captivating storyteller
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