Chaos and Cool

Follow Edie Sedgwick, Barbara Rubin, Andy Warhol, and Bob Dylan as they traverse the frenetic art and underground film world of the mid-60s in New York City.

New York City, 1964: a new scene is bringing together rock musicians, filmmakers, visual artists, and writers. This downtown network will profoundly impact two artists on the cusp of legend—Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol—and reshape the future of pop culture as we know it. At the center of the new scene are two young women: avant-garde filmmaker Barbara Rubin and iconic ingénue Edie Sedgwick.

Warhol, Rubin, Sedgwick, and Dylan sought out the paradoxical: mass fame and artistic transgression, attachment and individuality, the search for a fixed point within lives defined by constant self-invention. They helped each other, used each other, stole from each other, desired to be each other, and experimented together. And in their tempestuous, incestuous, and all-too-short time together, they were instrumental in shaping one of the most diverse and experimental art scenes in all of American history.

Chaos and Cool—a work of obsessively researched nonfiction weaving together interviews, artworks, underground newspapers, FBI files, and good old-fashioned gossip—narrates the most turbulent and transformative moment in these artists’ careers. Structured like a novel comprising love affairs, friendships, provocations, and inspirations, the book follows these four restless creators as their lives and art intertwine, juxtaposing their personal dramas with the political, social, and cultural conflicts erupting across the country.