Edie Factory Girl

by David Dalton, Nat Finkelstein (Photographer)

She was riveting to look at, a sprite of the zeitgeist, the living distillation of the over-amped vision of New York in the mid-sixties. Like many exotic creatures that Andy Warhol shed his light on, she initially bloomed—became the symbol for all that was hip and stylish—and just as quickly began to disintegrate. Told with unsparing candor, and with images that capture her at the peak of her Factory stardom, Edie Factory Girl is the short but enduring cultural story of Edie Sedgwick—releasing in time for the film of the same name starring Sienna Miller, and including rare photos of Miller as Edie.

David Dalton was just a teen when he became one of Warhol’s first assistants, and was present for the arrival of witnessing her rise, her Factory superstardom, and subsequent unraveling. Like an anthropologist thrown together with a tribe of “wild” people, Nat Finkelstein entered the Factory just as Warhol was emerging as the supreme catalyst of the sixties. Among the freaky menagerie, Nat found Andy’s misbegotten princess the most fascinating and enigmatic character of her time, and with a compassionate lens recorded her fragile, fleeting beauty. Edie Factory Girl is a privileged glimpse into Warhol’s inner sanctum, via revealing interviews with intimates, friends, and scenesters, in which Edie orbits around the likes of Bob Dylan, Salvador Dali, Betsey Johnson, Lou Reed, Judy Garland, and many more, before departing as quickly as she came.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, New York

160 pages, Hardcover

First published October 24, 2006

Reviews

[Melanie W. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretentious, immature, and misleading. This is why people shouldn't be allowed to write a book about another person unless they have some merit. If you want to learn about the REAL and accurate history of Edie, her family, or her time at the factory read Edie: An American Girl by Jean Stein. You'll get all the same quotes from people who knew or met her in this book without the idiotic narration that I'm assuming was written by a high schooler. If you buy this book, do it solely for having it as a picture book. Although, as insanely gorgeous as Edie was, for some reason the bulk of the photos chosen were when she was at her ugliest. Why they chose to use the most unattractive, overly saturated photos they could find of this iconic beauty is beyond me. Is this book supposed to be a biography or a satirical slam book? Just tacky and awful. And maliciously so, in my opinion.

[Julie Leggett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe this MTV book coincided with the movie release of Facory Girl(also done by MTV) which received less than rave reviews when it came out last year. I felt I had to give the book atleast three stars if not only for the great photographs. The book is exactly what the title says... edie:FACTORY GIRL. It is a timelined look at her brief stint in the factory scene. I don't think most people realize it was only about 11 months of her entire lifetime. Pretty amazing that in under one year she became Warhol's muse and an immortalized icon of the 60's. My guess is readers may still feel empty afer this book wanting to know more about this magnetic person's life. In that case I would suggest Edie: An American Biography or Edie: American Girl(the later I still have yet to read). Overall, if you want to know about this hazy wild part of her life, read this book. If you want her entire life story, read a biography.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A more impressionistic account than the famous Stein/Plimpton biography, energetically recapturing the feel of Edie's brief year of fame in the Factory.

[Rapunzella · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is fantastic.

[Jennifer Bacall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gorgeously designed pages, eye-catching page photos and striking quotes aren't enough to make the mish-mosh of text in Edie Factory Girl engaging. The book begins with Edie Sedgwick being discovered at a New York party. She was perhaps the first woman in American pop culture who was famous just for being famous. She was scooped up by Andy Warhol and served as his sometimes muse and movie star. The books jumps, unexpectedly to Edie's rich but abusive upbringing.

The text is like nothing I've seen before. The author alternates between using unconventional language in an attempt to impress the reader: "The cinephile clan of the Factory, idolaters of Greta and Judy awaited the coming of the One Foretold, the long-anticipated appearance of the sphinx-like diva..." to writing like text in a children's picture book: "Attatchemnts, commitments, responsibility-all the deadly leaden words that threatened to pull her down-she threw them out the window of her troika as she galloped ahead. Faster! Faster!"

As expected, the book is chock full of Warhol anecdotes and these tales, the aforementioned photos, and miscellaneous quotes from people are the only parts of the book that encouraged me to finish reading it.

[degelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are several bios on Edie Sedgwick, but out of all of them this one is the most graphic and forthcoming- not only regarding the sexual abuse in her childhood but the degradation she experienced as an adult. This continues to feed into everything she was: someone who kept running her entire life until the wheels came off.

I think of this as another take on Sedgwick's life although the sequence of events are pretty much the same. Dalton's style brings a gothic edge to the proceedings, like we're reading a ghost story or a Brontë novel. Although I've already seen most of Finkelstein's photographs the design, color and text choices were intriguing. If you're an Edie completist the layout definitely pulls you in.

Still, this book isn't that different from "Edie: American Girl," "Girl On Fire" or the "Ciao Manhattan Tapes"- all of which stick to an oral history format, just like this one. Dalton's observations are sometimes biased and speculative as well, which gives the narrative punch but left me doubting. There were also a few jabs at David Weisman and the production of "Ciao Manhattan" near the end, but that might have been because they were releasing books about Edie within weeks of each other. Who knows.

[Allison Nack · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more of an art book than a bio, which is cool because of the amazing photographs, beautifully colorful pages and fonts, and the sometimes bizarre captioning and written impressions of Edie by those who knew her. Some of the photos are extremely rare, especially the film stills because most of the films in which Edie appeared are no longer available. This book was the main inspiration for the recent movie "Factory Girl" with Sienna Miller as Edie (Sienna does look remarkably like her). If you want to read a good bio about Edie try "Edie: Girl on Fire" by David Weisman or "Edie: American Girl" by Jean Stein. If you don't know who she is: she was a Warhol girl, a symbol of the NYC 60s, an heiress who was fascinated by unusual people, a little girl who never grew up, a fashion icon, and a vulnerable soul who burned out too soon.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each page has gorgeous full color photo or photos of Edie, some of which I have never seen before but most of them I have in other books. A lot of the color photos also appear in Nat Finkelstein's The Factory Years which gives a greater photographic over view of "the factory". The pages are thick and glossy and technicolored like a Warhol painting and the font, utilizing many different font sizes in one paragraph, can be a bit challeging to read. The text is primarily a rehash of snippets from George Plimptons Edie: An American Biography which is far superior in content and photos although all of the photos are black and white. Over all a nicely done tribute to a fascinating and tragic person but more of a photo album/coffee table book than a biography. A definite must for any Edie fan.

[Jacqui N · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has little if anything further to add to Jean Stein's biography. It seems anyone writing a bio of Edie prefers the format of recollections of people who have known her. A lot of flowery language saying nothing much. A few new photos not previously seen. That's it.

Edie in a nutshell, from ? Jane Anderson: "Edie is now essentially a photograph, someone whose renown is based almost entirely on superficialities: her image, her style, her look. But what is compelling about her is her Otherness. There is an otherworldliness to Edie, she's like a changeling, or one of those long-legged gossamer creatures you see alighting on a leaf in children's books."

[Kime · Rating 4 out of 5]

My friend Nat Finkelstein did all the original photos for this cool insider book on Factory darling Edie. I liked the color images combined with the easy to read accounts of her from friends. Some folks didn't like that they painted a sometimes less than flattering portrayal of her. But I liked that it seemed that the people that associated with her the most were revealing the good and dark side of the icon

[Gingub Gravette · Rating 3 out of 5]

i picked this up during the recent "warhol live" show at the san francisco de young museum - it is an odd mix of photos and an even odder style of writing. once i got past the author(s) over illustrative writing style and criminally liberal excess of too many different type faces, i enjoyed the journey of edie's very brief and short lived factory days. very sad girl - but such a long lasting icon of style.

[Bookjunkyaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read some pretty terrible reviews, but I couldn't put this book down. It is no way as wonderful as Edide:An American Girl, but it has a ton pics that I hadn't seen before and is written in sort of haunting, sometimes cheesy, prose that I sort of dug.

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice pictures of Edie inside, with quotes from people who knew her.