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AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
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‘A blade-sharp coming-of-age novel’ SPECTATOR

‘Confirms Flattery as a bracingly original writer’ IRISH INDEPENDENT

‘In enviably elegant prose, she manages to be both arch and deadly serious’ LOUISE KENNEDY
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A wildly original debut novel about two young women navigating the complex worlds of Andy Warhol’s Factory, and coming of age in 1960s New York

New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down 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.

Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story about friendship, independence and the construction of art and identity, bringing to life the experience of young women in this iconic and turbulent moment.
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PRAISE FOR SHOW THEM A GOOD TIME:

‘A masterclass . . . Bold, irreverent and agonisingly funny’ Sally Rooney
‘Announces the arrival of a brilliant talent’ Financial Times
‘Explores difficult questions about self-worth, agency and intimacy with thrilling sharpness’ Sunday Times
‘Demands repeated reading’ Jon McGregor

A 2023 HIGHLIGHT FOR: THE TIMES * TELEGRAPH * STYLIST * GQ * GUARDIAN * HARPER’S BAZAAR * GOOD HOUSEKEEPING * WATERSTONES * i-D * IRISH TIMES * HUFFINGTON POST UK

Publisher Review

Nothing Special is as stylishly written as its predecessor Show Them a Good Time. Indeed there are shades of Saul Bellow, in her rendering of New York that 'shrieking cartoon hell' . . . [Flattery] deserves only praise * Sunday Independent * Nothing Special confirms Flattery as a bracingly original writer; her observations clear-eyed and cool-headed, never pretentious. Readers may be tempted to underline every other sentence in this striking debut from an exciting new voice' * Irish Independent * Flattery demonstrates here how she can shape on a larger scale and be incredibly inventive in the process . . . [Her] willingness to be ugly and merciless on the page is what makes her work so relentlessly engaging * Financial Times * Flattery is a keen observer of relational dynamics in groups of women, and how these connections can both support and strangle. Her characters feel complicated and real * Telegraph, Highlights for 2023 * Nicole Flattery's treatment of determined, bewildered young women - as they discover the vast distance between how they are perceived and how they feel themselves to be - is brilliantly gloomy, droll and so out-of-body as to be real . . .They try on and take off their survival instincts like costumes, in a painful, beguiling, apt twist on art for art's sake. The authenticity of Flattery's work offers its own reassurance that sometimes art is good -- Caoilinn Hughes If you've ever found yourself obsessing over Edie Sedgwick (her biography by Jean Stein is a must-read) then Nothing Special will be right up your street. Set against 60s New York and Andy Warhol's Factory, this is a coming-of-age story that conjures up the lure of the era * Stylist, Highlights for 2023 * A sharp portrait of New York's art scene in the sixties and one woman's place in it. Through inventive prose, Flattery writes into history the under-celebrated voices, and she does it in a masterful way. A superb novel -- Elaine Feeney In enviably beautiful prose, she manages to be both arch and deadly serious. Wonderful stuff. -- Louise Kennedy Audacious, original and fully achieved - this is a remarkable novel -- Kevin Barry One of the most exciting releases of 2023 . . . A dizzying exploration of sex, freedom, art and voyeurism, seen through the coming-of-age of 17-year-old Mae. Deftly woven and captivating, it signals the arrival of a new literary talent * Harper's Bazaar, highlights for 2023 * Told with dry wit and sharp observation, Nothing Special speaks in a profound and original way to our age of vacuous consumerism, our empty quests for self-discovery, and our parasitism on celebrity and trend . . . A bold and funny coming-of-age novel about the emptiness of the cult of self, the fetishisation of fame, and the aimless drift of late-stage capitalism -- Imogen Crimp, author of A VERY NICE GIRL Flattery's sentences are astonishing. Their wit and ingenuity, the apt oddness of her metaphors, are addictive and relentlessly delightful, and then all of a sudden her language snaps into an exactness of feeling that knocks you sideways. A special, singular, blazingly original and truly achieved first novel -- Colin Barrett, author of YOUNG SKINS I couldn't put this razor sharp, darkly funny coming-of-age story down -- Louisa Reid, author of THE POET A wry, witty and wonderful novel from a brilliantly captivating storyteller -- Joseph O'Connor 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