We see Mae's uneasy transformation, both in the 60s and from the perspective of her older self, looking back with a cool and knowing eye.įrom our first encounter with this young working-class woman, searching for a bigger world, we tumble down the rabbit hole and into an apparently bigger, more "special", artistic world - but find ourselves questioning that, too.įlattery's clear, clean style creeps up on you, as do the ideas she's exploring. Warhol himself shines brightly, and other figures appear briefly, but Flattery is careful not to ventriloquise them or pull focus away from her ordinary people. The author brings her fictional characters to vivid and awkward life, while the real members of the avant garde are carefully placed in the background, present but not too present. Loading.Īs the words of these exotic strangers make their way into Mae's head and out again through her typing fingers, Flattery's book becomes more and more beguiling. For Flattery, the act of transcribing is a device to explore listening, paying attention, and the ethics of eavesdropping on other people's lives. In real life, the Warhol transcripts were published as a: A Novel in Nothing Special, we encounter their contents through Mae's eyes (or more accurately, ears).
Instead, she's a typist and transcriber, working through a box of tapes recorded by Warhol: his own intimate conversations as well as overheard scraps intimate revelations, secrets, and stories of sex and drug-taking. She's not one of the artistes or muses, the filmmakers or acolytes, the strutters and posers and beautiful people. On her quest for something "special", Mae finds herself working in Andy Warhol's Silver Factory (aka The Factory).
Who or what is "nothing special" in this novel? The most obvious candidate – at least initially - is 17-year-old Mae, riding the escalators of department stores in New York in 1966, looking for a life away from her alcoholic waitress mum, backstabbing school mates and grim future. Irish writer Nicole Flattery made her name writing short fiction, winning awards and accolades from fellow writers such as compatriot Sally Rooney: "I truly love Nicole Flattery's writing" is right there on the cover of her debut novel, Nothing Special. "I wanted to be more a presence than a person,'" Flattery told the Irish Times.
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