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 bookfollows 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.

• "[Millner] is good at teasing out the cultural trends and revolutions of the day, including the rise of the gay liberation movement and the ways in which Warhol subverted Hollywood film conventions. . . . [he] does especially well to commemorate [Barbara] Rubin.”
  Kirkus Reviews
• "In cinematic prose, Millner conveys the intersection of two revolutionary filmmaking camps: Jonas Mekas’ downtown Film-Makers' Coop and Andy Warhol’s silver-lined Factory uptown. Emerging as the blazing stars of each scene, Barbara Rubin and Edie Sedgwick gave voice to femme power in very different ways within the avant-garde boys’ club, including Dylan himself. Rubin’s journey as pioneering filmmaker and brilliant connector (from Allen Ginsberg to the Fugs and beyond) and Sedgwick’s dazzling yet complicated role as Warhol Superstar are in the forefront – enthralling, untold stories that deserve our attention.
  Holly George-Warren, author of Janis: Her Life and Music
• “Every chapter a cliffhanger, Chaos and Cool’s intricate group portraiture restores the conceptual advances of Barbara Rubin and Edie Sedgwick to the world Dylan and Warhol remade in the mid-1960s. Michael Millner renders the moment with a freshness and insightful immediacy that make the story profoundly absorbing, surprising, and urgent.”
  Eric Lott, City University of New York Graduate Center, author of Love and Theft
• “Riveting and revelatory. A blazing, cinematic portrayal of Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol, and two incredible women, at a pivotal time in their overlapping lives. Millner has written a defining account of the 1960s, with major lessons for our own time.”
  Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University, and author of How to Become Famous
• “Presenting Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan as fellow voyeurs, Chaos and Cool illuminates the cultural transitions of the middle ’60s. Warhol’s icy detachment contrasted sharply with the passion of Dylan’s songs, but they each used art to disturb the audience, challenging the social consensus and redefining (or rather expanding) reality. How that came about is a fascinating story, and Millner tells it with detail and insight.”
  Dennis McNally, author of The Last Great Dream and A Long Strange Trip