Anthony Haden-Guest

This will appeal to a very small demographic: people interested in the New York art world of the 1980s. But for those of us in that group, the inside stories and the gossip are priceless. The book actually begins in the 70s (roughly where Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word ended) and ends in the mid-90s, and it takes little side trips to Germany, London, and even Denmark, but the really juicy stuff is in the middle--New York and Schnabel and Salle and Basquiat and the P&D group and the graffitists and the Neo-Geos and the has-beens and the never-weres. Fantastic.… (mere)

It started out weird. In the middle of the story and lots of spoilers of which you did not yet want to know but once we got to Melanie and Buddy's story it got really interesting. Yes I liked it. Sometimes I did get confused with all the names of people participating in the story but all in all a very good read. After I'd finished I looked Melanie up cause there are no photo's in the book except for the one on the cover. You want to know how she looked like. (pretty!) Glad that I picked this up finally.… (mere)

This is a pretty good social history of the New York club scene, focusing primarily on Studio 54, but looking at other clubs, as well. The book works well when its author is telling stories of the clubs, their owners, and their denizens. It works less well when the author inserts himself into the narrative. In the end this book suffers a bit from the "I don't know what I want to be" syndrome. On the one hand it wants to be a social history, but on the other hand it kind of wants to be a memoir. It doesn't completely fill either role well, although it's definitely interesting and entertaining.… (mere)