The Andy Warhol Diaries

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Summary: Gossip and More Gossip about the fabulous 70s and 80s
Review: Fascinating tales from the horses mouth. Andy dictated his diary to Pat Hackett at 9:30 am daily from whereever he was in the world. It started out as an expense account diary, but it turned into gossipy dish about the wild times in the Warhol world of the 70s and 80s. One can almost hear Andy speaking the words in his low, whiney voice. Some parts are very very funny, other parts make you want to cry. Andy was a lost soul and it comes through very clearly in his quest for acceptance. This book is large, trimmed down from 20,000 original diary pages, but still too large for a quick read. It almost takes extra time to read the diaries, a lot cannot be absorbed all at once. It is best ingested and enjoyed in small doses. It is really a delight and full of naughty fun

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Summary: A Priceless Insight Into The World of a Superstar Artist
Review: For centuries, the world of visual art was filled with mythical giants, people whose genius was not revealed to the world until long after said person's demise or people whose genius so overwhelmed others that no one dared get close to the figure. Thankfully, Andy Warhol was neither of those two types of artists. And the world knows this due to the IRS, a woman who originally just wanted a little excitement in her life, and a man who refused to censor himself.

Andy Warhol was a lifelong Democrat who criticized the Nixon administration, thus sparking a series of intense IRS audits. To help make these audits easier, he and his then-assistant Pat Hackett began cataloguing his daily expenses and saving every single receipt he received. This grew into a routine that lasted long after Hackett stopped officially working for Warhol, through phone conversations and taped recordings. Warhol would inject bits of his everyday life into the financial chatter and he and Hackett became close friends and confidants. Approximately two years after Warhol's passing, Hackett compiled all of her notes together, made it into a cohesive whole, and published it as The Andy Warhol Diaries. And the Warhol fan should silently thank Hackett every day for this.

Because of the intimate friendship these two people enjoyed, the reader is able to get a more personal, more vulnerable view of one of the art world's most original and celebrated figures. By devouring the pages of this easily readable text, one can understand that for all the glitz and glamour associated with this artist's public persona, his private life was actually not that much different from that of the "average" American. He went to work, he paid his bills, he interacted with his friends, he tried to navigate the tricky world of love and romance, and experienced the same level of disappointments, setbacks, rejection, and confusion as that of any other human being in the post-industrial world.

Though that isn't to say that Warhol's life was completely devoid of the glitter that seemed to shine on the surface. To delve into the diaries is to escape into the celebrity-filled world of Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s, where one could bump into Jacqueline Onassis, Bianca Jagger, Diane von Furstenburg, or a massive array of other celebrities, all of whom Warhol had at least brief encounters with. Warhol did live what some might describe as a jet set lifestyle, flying off here and there to do promotional work, to attend various events held in his honor, to work with some new art patron of his, or on occasion to just relax and interact with his friends, both famous and non-famous. But he was by no means a spendthrift; indeed, many passages in the diaries indicate his desire to save money or to invest it, not wishing to squander his money away and return to the life he had as a child in a poor immigrant family. So his jet-set lifestyle did have its limits and he did end up spending a tremendous amount of time in and around his NYC home base, choosing to do most of his lounging at his vacation home in Montauk.

One might think that all of the above might tell the full story of The Diaries, that this means The Diaries are no longer worth checking out. One would be wholly incorrect, there, because The Diaries are so much more than just a chronicle of an artist's life. They give the reader an insight into the artist's personality that only his own words, lovingly preserved by his former assistant, can give. They make the reader fall in love with Warhol, make the reader forever protective of him, make the reader wish he or she could've gotten a chance to know the late artist before his untimely and unfortunate demise in 1987. For this and many other reasons, this publication is an absolute must-read for anyone even remotely interested in "that guy who painted Campbell's soup cans" and is worth every single penny of its list price and then some.

Rating:
Summary: The best book ever!
Review: I recently bought this book on a whim and it has got to be the best book that I've ever read. I read Bob Colacelo's book as a starting point and I'm glad that I did even though it was sour grapes on Andy.
This book is so chatty, sad, funny, insensitive and revealing about Andy Warhol and his role as the most public man on the New York Party scene of the 70's and 80's. It's a real time capsule of world events as well, and it will bring back alot of memories for people who lived through the political and social turmoil of those decades.
It's a huge book and you really get your moneys worth on Andy Warhol's psyche in all of it's positive and negative glorious-ness. It's taking me a few weeks to read it and I can't put it down, except that I have to to go to work every day. I'm really enjoying it alot!

Rating:
Summary: Great Gossip and picture of the times
Review: If you want a great picture of the New York scene in the 70s and early 80s you can't go past this book. Andy Warhol was the ultimate party animal, and his observations of the people he partied with and the places he partied at are witty and insightful.

But hey the gossip is great! Lots of people were uncomfortable when this was published, and with good cause. It is really quite revealing!

If you are interested in the arts scene of the times this is a really revealing book. If you like a good gossip this is for you. Enjoy Mr Warhol's 15 minutes of fame! He appeared to.