Regular marked price: $17.95Discount Price: $13.46
Cost Savings: $4.49 (25%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 700.92
EAN num: 9780815410089
ISBN number: 0815410085
Label: Cooper Square Press
Manufacturer: Cooper Square Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 560
Printing Date: October 25, 1999
Publishing house: Cooper Square Press
Sale Popularity Level: 679990
Studio: Cooper Square Press
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Bob Colacello presents an insider's look at the man and phenomenon that was Warhol.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
This book is like a big box of candy--gossipy and chummy--compulsively readable and bittersweet.
Colacello was a top Warhol insider--for a while--so he was in a good position to give us a first-hand account of what it was like. However he isnt an art critic or art historian, and he's not an artist. So don't expect a lot of analysis into Warhol's art.
This book is more about what it was like to live and work with Andy Warhol. At least what it was like for Bob Colacello. For the most part Colcello seems to remember that and doesn't do a lot of sideline psychoanalysis...for the most part. He draws his conclusions, like the rest of us, and, like the rest of us, tells us probably more about himself than he does about Warhol.
Other people are impossible to know. Probably the best we can do is report as directly as possible what we *see*--without commentary. What we see, all by itself, is commentary enough.
Perhaps Warhol understood this better than any other major artist. It may very well be the key to his oeuvre--the films and paintings, the books and interviews that all seem to be about either nothing, or whatever one makes of them.
It's a lesson that Colacello seems to have drawn from to write "Holy Terror," which is refreshingly free from a lot of the usual compromising motivations of first-person, I-was-there books of this sort: the judgment and self-aggrandizement of the author, and the demonizing of the (usually) dead and now voiceless and therefore defenseless subject.
These sorts of books are usually written, to one degree or another, for revenge...and profit. Indeed, at the very end of this lengthy volume, Colacello acknowledges that his original purpose in writing *Holy Terror* was to "liberate" himself from Andy Warhol. Fortunately, this ulterior motive comes through only rarely, and mostly and most strongly in the concluding chapters, where Colacello tries to sum up Andy Warhol for us.
Colacello has some axes to grind. He felt underappreciated by his boss, for whom he labored to the point of physical and psychological collapse, for thirteen years. He ghostwrote the books for which Warhol was given credit, made Warhol's "Interview" magazine a significant cultural signpost, and accompanied Warhol on what seems to have been a non-stop rollercoaster of all-night parties, openings, and get-togethers with the rich and famous. He served his boss as assistant, commissions pimp, social crutch, and, on many occasions, a shoulder to cry on. And all of this for relatively little financial reward--and even less recognition.
On the other hand, Colacello does seem to remember--even if only in passing and primarily by implication--that without Warhol he and so many others who lived, worked, and complained about the artist would not be the chroniclers, critics, and footnotes to art history and American culture that they are.
Warhol, who, according to Colacello, expressed himself primarily in a series of "gees, umms, oh reallys" comes out of this biographical autopsy relatively intact--by which I mean, pretty much as much of an enigma as before. And inasmuch as this is the case, it is to Colacello's credit.
More than perhaps any other artist, Warhol was a blank screen. It's what he aspired to and what he to a large degree succeeded in achieving. He reflected the people and events around him. Peel the reflective part off a mirror or the paint off a canvas and what have you got?
You cant get the answer you really want from Mona Lisa by asking her. Or by scraping away at her vague smile. There isnt anything underneath. That's the mystery, the horror, the beauty, the holy joke of it all.
Rated by buyers -
I found this book on the shelf recently unread and found it, after the annoying very first chapter on Bob quitting, a rather quick read for the length. While there are stories about famous people, I didn't find the tone mean and the stories about the famous people played to make them sound awful. A lot of time has passed since the book was written and certainly since the events described took place. The names of certain socialites discussed at length will mean nothing to most readers.
In terms of the profile of Warhol, it's fairly rewarding in terms of how he managed people, his projects, how he operated socially and yes what some of his eccentric habits were. But once again, this is more 'tell it like it is' than bitter and negative.
Rated by buyers -
I did not intend to read this book. I read the very first chapter because my wife told me to, and couldn't put it down. The book is like watching a train wreck. I kept hoping that somebody would stand up and inject some sanity into the lives of these people, but they just kept heading toward disaster and oblivion. While I found that the gossipy nature of the book get in the way of the story, I must admit that Bob Colacello made that time in that place seem both glamorous and horrible. I think it is worth a read, if for no other reason than to be able to sit back and say "I'm so glad my life isn't like that!".
Rated by buyers -
I didn't intend to reread this book, but I opened it while searching for an obscure New York address and didn't put it down again until I'd finished reading every page. When it very first came out, I remember critics mostly tsk-tsking Colacello because they seemed to think he'd gotten to the place he was through Warhol and no doubt he did...What I failed to notice when the book was very first published, was how Colacella and every single "Warhol" person who's written a book had a nervous breakdown as they were spinning (or trying to spin) out of his orbit. I want to read the book that tells WHY these intelligent creative people threw themselves so totally into Warhol's world...a world that couldn't have existed without them.....All I can say is, if your intent is to try and understand Warhol, then Bob Colacello's book is the absolute best take...besides yourself.
Rated by buyers 
-
Bob Colacello put all his unpublished Warhol writing projects into a cocktail shaker and added some ice. The result is this frothy, gossip ridden, whiskey sour. A 504 page, tall drink that doesn't get any sweeter as you suck it down. The anecdotes about Imelda Marcos, Truman Capote, Farah Diba make it seem like the 70's took place on another planet. It's a fun read and I laughed out loud quite a few times. But one get's the feeling that this book was written as revenge on Warhol for the social abuse that Colacello "suffered" during the years they worked together.
Find other books like this one:
