Working with the cool cats

Clever blend of fact and fiction casts a critical eye on Andy Warhol’s Factory.

- CATRIONA FERGUSON

NOTHING SPECIAL, by Nicole Flattery (Bloomsbury, $32.99)

It's the mid-1960s, and discontented teenager Mae is searching for her place in the world. Frustrated by her "boring and disgusting" schoolmates and constantly disappointed by her alcoholic mother, she seeks distraction in New York's elite department stores, searching for adventure on the escalators in Macy's and Bloomingdale's, indulging in light shoplifting and eventually catching the eye of a man travelling on the opposite staircase. This chance encounter is the beginning of a series of events that leads Mae to a silver paper-covered Midtown loft. Oblique references gradually reveal that she has found herself in the inner sanctum of the cult Factory studio, home to some of Andy Warhol's most famous creative endeavours and the venue for some of his most infamous shenanigans.