Nothing Special
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A wildly original, "gorgeous . . . brave and effecting" (New York Times Book Review) coming-of age novel about a teenage girl working at Andy Warhol's Factory in 1960s New York.
New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a rundown 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.
For readers of Ottessa Moshfegh and Mary Gaitskill, Nothing Special is a whip-smart, mordantly funny coming-of-age story that brings to life the experience of young girls in this iconic and turbulent American moment, and brilliantly interrogates the intersections of friendship, art, and identity.
About this Author
Nicole Flattery is the author of the story collection Show Them a Good Time. She is the winner of the An 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 London Review of Books, and elsewhere. A graduate of the master's program in creative writing at Trinity College, she lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Reviews
"I truly love Nicole Flattery's writing." --Sally Rooney, Author of NORMAL PEOPLE and CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS
"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
"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
"Nicole Flattery [is] a raucously talented young Irish writer . . . witty, propulsive and darkly delightful to read." --The Economist
"Audacious, original and fully achieved - this is a remarkable novel." --Kevin Barry, author of NIGHT BOAT TO TANGIER
"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
"In enviably elegant prose, she manages to be both arch and deadly serious. Wonderful stuff." --Louise Kennedy, author of TRESPASSES
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