A: A Novel

by Andy Warhol

Book Overview

Conceptually unique, hilarious, and frightening, a: A Novel is the perfect literary manifestation of Andy Warhol's sensibility. In the late sixties, Warhol set out to turn a trade book into a piece of pop art, and the result was this astonishing account of the artists, superstars, addicts, and freaks who made up the Factory milieu. Created from audiotapes recorded in and around the Factory, a: A Novel begins with the fabulous Ondine popping several...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802135536
• ISBN13: 9780802135537
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Best Read with Strobe Light and Pop Rocks

My favorite A book, though I am biased when it comes to the Warhola's. (hello mark:) The only book as far (as I am concerned) that truly has A's hand in it. Give all other credit to Bob Collacello(sp), as he is the true writer of most. Love to you both..

It's not Clancy it's Warhol

You can't read every book and expect it to be the same form or formula. If you want your will imposed on every book you read, if you want Tom Clancy, don't read this. This is a "novel" transcribed from tapes. Andy loved tapes, tape- recorders, televsion. The tape, film, personal media explosion was only taking off at the time of this piece (book , novel, whatever). You have to come to it differently. Andy loved to fiddle with people and he loved to be fiddled. He's fiddling with alot in this book. Don't expect Tom Clancy when your reading something coming from the Warhol factory.

A transcript, an artwork, not a novel. Great entertainment.

I first read this book when I was 18. Being enormously taken with it, I never returned my copy (an original hardback in paperback size with the big "A" on the front) to the university library. I ended up paying the library $272 in back dues before the university would release my diploma. It was worth every cent.To create "A," Warhol followed and tape-recorded one Factory personality, Ondine, for 24 hours. Ondine was reportedly high on amphetamines at the time, so it was a full 24 hours involving no sleep. (Ondine was also a homosexual. He speaks graphically about homosexual sex often in "A" - that is why it was branded as pornographic in its day.) "A" is simply the transcription of those 24 hours worth of audio tape. Nothing more, nothing less. The women who were hired to transcribe the tapes reportedly got bored with their jobs and started typing the material in different layouts and formats. This formatting was left in the original book."A" is a collaborative work (Warhol, Ondine, Ondine's associates, the typists). It's pre-post-modern, if you will. And it is a splendid artifact from its time. It shouldn't be described or experienced in the context of literature and novels. It is an art piece, like any of Warhol's films. One does not compare the films "Empire State Building" or "Sleep" with "Sleepless in Seattle." If you like being a fly on the wall, "A" will please you. It's like being there. Watch for references to the introduction of Pop Tarts and the release of the first James Bond flick. If you appreciate pop art and post-modernism, you'll get even more out of the book.If you're a Warhol/Factory officianado (like me), it's great fun trying to decipher the real identities of the codenamed characters. Watch the film, "I Shot Andy Warhol" after reading "A." Much of the film's dialogue and situations could easily have been culled from the book."A" is quintessential Warhol: pop art as historical record / historical record as pop art.

A captures the peak year of the sixties experience.

A was written/recorded in 1965 when Andy Warhol first experimented with his new Norelco tape recorder. It wasn't until 1967/68 that the tape was actually transcribed, by Factory-ites working for minimum wage, one of whom was Moe Tucker, the drummer for the Velvet Underground. A was first published by Grove Press shortly after Warhol was shot on June 3, 1968. The original dustjacket is a giant red A -- Warhol turns Hawthorne's scarlet letter on its head. A is 24 hours in the life of the Factory denizens. A is Andy Warhol updating James Joyce' Ulysses. Whereas Joyce took 7 years to write about one 24 hour period, Warhol took just 24 hours. A includes all the gossip, pauses, stutters, and drug babble as one might expect. A just might be the only example of true "new journalism." Tape recorders don't lie. As a document of one typical day in 1965, the peak year of the great sixties decade, A is an unqualified success. Andy Warhol was at the vortex, watching/recording all from his silver throne. Warhol biographer Victor Bockris calls A "part of Warhol's great trilogy," the other two works being CHELSEA GIRLS, Warhol's 1966 3-1/2 hour film (it's actually 7 hours worth of film, since two reels are projected simultaneously) along with lp THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO, recorded in May, 1966. Get a copy of A now that it has been reissued. Start anywhere. Skip around. Read it your way. Just like the sixties.