My Face for the World to See: The Diaries, Letters, and Drawings of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar

by Candy Darling, Francesca Passalacqua (Editor), D.E. Hardy (Editor)

Self-invention, or rather, reinvention is at the heart of much gay culture. Being told that you should not be who you are encourages you to become someone else. But few gay men have self-invented with the panache and grandiloquence of James Lawrence Slatterly, who metamorphosed into the fabulous Andy Warhol superstar Candy Darling. Taking his/her cues from Lana Turner, Kim Novak, and Gloria Graham, Candy Darling became a walking testament to Hollywood womanhood. Although she appeared in several Warhol films before her early death in 1974, Candy Darling didn't need theatrical she lived her life as a star. My Face for the World to See is a collection of her diaries, drawings, and thoughts. While there is nothing profound, the book is a moving record of a life and imagination that illuminated the cultural landscape and burned brightly and too short.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

127 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1997

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted this book for so long and I finally found a lower-than-usual priced copy and treated myself. It was fun immersing myself in Candy’s world for a brief time. She was one of a kind.

[Maj · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book/collection back in 2008 but while cleaning recently I came over it and realised I likely never actually read the whole thing.

Have to say, reading it now, after everyone lost their minds bc of woke and DEI and backlashes against, and during a time when the convo around trans rights is so unhinged...it was definitely an interesting experience. Coz this lady wouldn't have passed the test. She SO wasn't a feminist. She used what would be now offensive terms (but weren't then) re: disabled or black people. Her own brand of womanhood was entirely based on watching glamorous movie stars on TV (an impossible goal to live up to, trans or cis). What she liked about women and being one was the softness and passivity. (Though not just). She definitely disliked hardness. (Especially in women.)

At one point she writes: "I tried to explain my identity as being a male who assumed the attitudes and somewhat emotions of a female." Whatever the fuck that means. What IS a female attitude? What IS a female emotion? I feel like I understood trans people better when I was a child.

At another point she writes: "What type of society is it that every malcontent is free to rear their ugly head and shout for rights?" Oops.

And yet, her looks-obssessed egocentrism aside, she also seemed like a genuinely kind person and someone longing for genuine deep love. A complex human people are still interested in, over half a century after she died. Is it only because of her ability to pass? Her proximity to Warhol? The tragedy of being born in the wrong body and dying so young?

Would she have just gone on to be a housewife had she been born in the right body straight away? Or would she have still longed to be a famous, glamorous actress? And would she have had a tendency for inner turmoil anyway? (I feel like she was someone you could talk to about this, actually.)

The collection is a bit...random. I guess the people who put it together kind of gave up on being chronological (likely because not everything had a date). It's not simply just a diary, there are also letters and loose bits of this and that. I kind of liked it, and clearly found it thought provoking. So, in a way, a good read, hence the relatively high rating, even though there wasn't much of it, and it was all somewhat scattershot.

Bonus points for the form: the cover, with the lock, and the keys is perfect. It's more of an object d'art than a book, really. A beautiful cover and scattershot inside, maybe it actually sums up Candy better than any serious biography ever could. (One did come out last year, in 2024. Might check out at some point, but for now, I'm good.)

[Er Yáñez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hay algo enigmático en cómo se ha sostenido la figura de Candy Darling con el paso de las décadas. Me intriga porque sí fue ícono pero también, como todxs en la escena de The Factory, tenía sus asuntos de época que hoy por hoy serían extremadamente señalados. Que sobrepuesto a ello se vislumbre una mujer amable, digna y sensible que se resiste, con ingenio e inteligencia, a la adversidad es maravilloso. La construcción de la feminidad parecería estereotipada y sumamente egocéntrica pero hay algo tan carnal en ello que me encanta. Llega, por momentos, a un tono aforístico que me pone a rescatar y reflexionar. Sin embargo, una gran colección de textos no es sin su curaduría y en este caso, me pareció un trabajo de edición atrabancado en fallos. Entre los formatos mixtos y el mínimo seguimiento cronológico hay algo que podría ser mucho más rico e incluso, de ser comentado, completo. Quizá otras colecciones similares lo hagan mejor o quizá no. En ese caso será bueno mirar una biografía y acercarse a las voces de quienes realmente amaron a Darling.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This will be a review for both Candy Darling: Memoirs of an Andy Warhol Superstar and My Face for the World to See: The Diaries, Letters, and Drawings of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar. The version on Hoopla was listed as the former, but seemed to have bits from the latter (excluding drawings and some photos it seems).

Since most of the entries were not really chronological (or had a date), I think this would have been better as a scanned diary, like Kurt Cobains.

Mary Harron kept misgendering her.

She seemed like a very lovely person, today would have been her 73rd birthday.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely collection of Candy's observations and textual mementos. From drawings, to scribblings, to contemplations on life. All quite appreciated, for their preservation. As are Jeremiah's commentaries, as a foremost preserver of Candy's legacy.

[Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

rated 3 stars not for the content, but for the way in which it was curated. I think that if it had been scans of documents rather than a mixture of typed up things and photos it would have been much better

[Becca Younk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Candy Darling was nearly perfect.

[woodpecker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed it but not enough!

[Jane Doe · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a quick read.

I felt I could cry reading Candy’s writings, her yearn for love reminds me of my own yearn for love. That makes me feel less alone with my yearn for love, for something real.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently, there are a handful of books of the same title and I read the one I didn’t intend to lol but it ended up working out. I enjoyed myself even if I didn’t know much about Candy Darling, except her name being referenced in “Walk on the Wild Side” and “Candy Says.”

My Face for the World to See is a short read in which you do get to know Candy quite well. Not in the way you get to know someone in a typical memoir or biography. But through personal diary entries, doodles, cooking instructions, hair instructions, and letters from when she was thirteen until her death at 29. Very unserious and unpretentious, yet effective in illustrating her journey through identity, sexuality, love, spirituality, and ultimately, death—that last piece was fucking bleak.

As someone oblivious to Candy's legacy, it was my first time learning she was trans. A pleasant surprise, and made the book even richer. I'll give this a 3 for now, just because I don't know her all too much yet. Perhaps it would be ranked higher after I get into more of her work.

[Larry-bob Roberts]

In a padded cover pink diary with lock and key are the secret diaries of Candy Darling. A scrapbook of the remnants of a life - facsimiles of notes, letters, drawings, photos. I wonder about the photobooth photos of Candy as a young boy -- when did she draw the hair on, transforming the images by voodoo into a girl?

[C.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

We miss you Candy!

[Michael Thomas Angelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

a compendium of random jottings and recipes

[Marion for a Free Palestine · Rating 4 out of 5]

It doesn't get hotter or more 60's than Candy Darling.