The Trip: Andy Warhol's Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure

Davis (Guest of Honor) recounts the high-speed, cross-country car trip Warhol took from New York City to Los Angeles with three friends in 1963 to attend the opening of his first-ever solo art show. The journey itself is only part of the narrative, which spans Warhol's life and career. Davis's strength is her eye for detail, and she recreates the minutia of mid-20th-century America through descriptions of billboards, neon signs, amphetamines, cheap motels, experimental films, and wild parties. Davis's prose mirrors the zeitgeist Warhol brought to his art: bright, breezy, and easy to understand. She may not convince readers that the L.A. trip was Warhol's artistic turning point, but she immerses them in his gossipy, kitschy, crowded, materialistic, and off-kilter world. For Warhol aficionados, this book may add a few twists to familiar territory. For readers less familiar with the pop artist, it provides an entertaining and accessible introduction to his work and a beginner's guide to the social scene of the pop art world. Photos. Agent: Scott Waxman, Waxman Leavell Literary Agency. (July)