Andy Warhol once wrote that his “great unfulfilled ambition” was to have a regular television show, which he would call Nothing in particular. Her dream show never aired, but Irish writer Nicole Flattery borrowed her name anyway for her debut novel, which is largely set in Warhol’s Factory in 1966. In a February conversation with the irish timeFlattery admitted that calling her novel Nothing in particular maybe “I presented myself to the critics in a very bad way” – which is not entirely untrue. Nothing in particular is a pleasant, clever and sometimes propulsive novel, but it is not a special novel. In fact, although it is set in a place and a time that transformed the history of art, it is a contemporary story like many others: that of a disaffected young woman half-heartedly trying to sort out his life.
Disgruntled young women were the main subjects of Flattery’s collection of stories in 2018 Give them a good time, which takes place in what is now Ireland. It was acclaimed, and rightly so: Flattery’s prose is sharp, showing his keen eye for the sorts of ugliness that often go unnoticed. Nothing in particular is also interested in the brutal and the banal. Mae, its protagonist, is a high school dropout based loosely on one of the girls who, in real life, tapped the tapes – mostly recordings of Warhol talking to his friend Ondine – that formed Warhol’s 1986 novel A. Her mother, a waitress with a drinking problem and a complex love life, seems to have passed on her “overwhelming understanding of human frailty,” which serves Mae well in her work. Rather than being shocked by the drugged and dirty recordings she transcribes, Mae quickly sees their power, which comes from Ondine’s “willingness to be ugly”. How invigorating the ugliness was, it cut through the bullshit. In Nothing in particular, it is often the same. It’s at its best in hideous little moments: an unsavory lover rubbing the “chubby little stomach… like I’m a sick animal” or the cruel comment that “art was what women of a certain class took when they lost their appearance.
But Flatterie’s interest in the banality, which is or often seems universal, prevents him from delving into the particularities of Nothing in particularits context and setting. She is very sensitive to details that denote social status – the yellowing walls of one apartment, the expensive carpets of another – but goes to great lengths to evoke the visual, historical or sonic details of 1960s New York. She doesn’t even adapt her prose from Irish to American; characters let go obtained In You‘I haveprepare the drinks beer mat rather than coaster. Small omissions, yes, but it is from the nuance that the tone emerges, and in its tone, Nothing in particular is strangely placeless and timeless. Beyond Warhol and his project, there is not much to anchor the novel in its moment. It turns into the story of a lost girl, stranded in a factory that could, for all its quirks, be just about anywhere.
Nothing in particular by Nicole Flattery (2023) is published by Bloomsbury Publishing and is available online and in bookstores.
