Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 69 ratings

Price: 21.65

Last update: 01-16-2025


About this item

National Book Critics Circle Award nominee, 2024

This program is read by cabaret legend Justin Vivian Bond.

A Must-Read: The New York Times Book Review, Nylon, Star Tribune, Ms., Kirkus Reviews, The Bay Area Reporter, Town & Country, InsideHook

“[A] monumental biography.”—Hilton Als, The New Yorker

“A rich portrait of a glittering, communal, and bygone NYC . . . [and] of the glamorous queer icon.”—Arimeta Diop, Vanity Fair

From the acclaimed biographer Cynthia Carr, the first full portrait of the queer icon and Warhol superstar Candy Darling.

Warhol superstar and transgender icon Candy Darling was glamour personified, but she was without a real place in the world.

Growing up on Long Island, lonely and quiet and queer, she was enchanted by Hollywood starlets like Kim Novak. She found her turn in New York’s early Off-Off-Broadway theater scene, in Warhol’s films Flesh and Women in Revolt, and at the famed nightclub Max's Kansas City. She inspired songs by Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. She became friends with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, borrowed a dress from Lauren Hutton, posed for Richard Avedon, and performed alongside Tennessee Williams in his own play.

Yet Candy lived on the edge, relying on the kindness of strangers, friends, and her quietly devoted mother, sleeping on couches and in cheap hotel rooms, keeping a part of herself hidden. She wanted to be a star, but mostly she wanted to be loved. Her last diary entry was: “I shall try to be grateful for life . . . Cannot imagine who would want me." Candy died at twenty-nine in 1974, as conversations about gender and identity were really just starting. She never knew it, but she changed the world.

Packed with tales of luminaries and gossip and meticulous research, immersive and laced with Candy’s words and her friends' recollections, Cynthia Carr's Candy Darling is Candy's long-overdue return to the spotlight.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Brittney Brisbin
    5.0 out of 5 stars A well rounded portrait of Candy Darling
    Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2024
    I've always found Candy Darling to be such an intriguing and interesting figure and I always wanted to know more about her. As soon as I found this book, I knew I had to buy it, and I absolutely love it! It offers a very well rounded portrait of Candy and gives a lot of nuance to her life and personality, showing both the part of her that felt she was glamorous and a star and the part that understood her poverty and vulnerability as a trans woman in the 60s and 70s. If you want to know more about Candy Darling, you should definitely get this book!
  • Carl
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written biography of this Warhol era Superstar
    Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024
    Cynthia Carr writes about Candy Darling, her difficult life, her dreams and aspirations, with insightful tenderness and genuine love, coupled with a deep understanding of the insane and insanely funny New York downtown scene of that time. The chapter about Jackie Curtis's play Vain Victory had me laughing out loud.
    Customer image
    Carl
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written biography of this Warhol era Superstar
    Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024
    Cynthia Carr writes about Candy Darling, her difficult life, her dreams and aspirations, with insightful tenderness and genuine love, coupled with a deep understanding of the insane and insanely funny New York downtown scene of that time. The chapter about Jackie Curtis's play Vain Victory had me laughing out loud.
    Images in this review
    Customer image
  • Tara Hatchett
    4.0 out of 5 stars Candy Darling: A Legend in Warholian NYC and Beyond
    Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2024
    I went into this not knowing a single thing about Candy Darling (this is on me; I know very little about Warhol-era artists in NYC) and now I feel like I know SO MUCH -- this is queer and trans history, and a reminder that self-identification is so important especially for historical figures, which the book mentioned more than once (as in, 'genderfluid wasn't a word in use in x year but so and so may have used that today' kind of thing, and the fact that Darling never described herself as any sort of trans (knowing that transsexual and transvestite were the much more common words of the day) but only as a woman/"a real lady".

    This is actually quite a long audiobook (about 15 hours) and goes through not only what happened in Darling's tragically short life according to the annals of history and the accounts of those around her, but the surviving letters and diaries from the icon herself. At times it felt like we were really listening to every single letter and every single moment of Darling's life, which may have been a bit too much, but a book that defines itself as THE definitive biography it was probably the way to go, and Justin Vivian Bond's narration wasn't my favorite at first but I quickly understood why he was a great choice to read it as beyond basic narration they were able to slip into more than just "doing the voice" of these big names that were quoted (Darling, Warhol, and many others) but really brought a sort of presence to it more than just affecting an accent or manner of speech. (And now, looking up their life, it was a good choice to have an older drag/transfemme person do narration as they have the lived experience of being a stage performer, being trans, and having enough years under their belt to have been around long enough to be in the aftermath of this queer section of off-off Broadway entertainment and Warhol films.

    For anyone that is interested in queer history this is a good one, but there really is SO MUCH information here I feel like I needed to make a list of supplemental material (which again, my failing for not being a big movie or NYC history person).
  • Christopher Harrity
    5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed and full of information about the world that Candy experienced.
    Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2024
    I always loved Candy and this was a super sweet book for me.
  • jan
    3.0 out of 5 stars sub par
    Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2025
    Maybe I am expecting too much from a trade book but I was surprised by the low academic standard in Carr's research. Some facts are cited as taken from websites-- literally including Wikipedia and warholstars.org. Other times, interviews are transcribed directly from videos Carr watched on Youtube and that Carr simply states were "found on Youtube, possibly part of another documentary," not even bothering to locate the source or original footage.
    Further, a substantial number of quotes and transcriptions Carr includes are taken from interviews conducted by a prior CD biographer, a man who is mentioned so often within Carr's book as to be a prominent figure in the narrative...
  • Lisa G
    5.0 out of 5 stars Nuance
    Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2024
    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
  • Patrick Lehman
    5.0 out of 5 stars A walk on Candy’s side
    Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2024
    This book is a jewel, telling about not just Candy, but the fertile culture and energized downtown milieu in which she lived. Half the time I wanted to give Candy a big hug, the other half of the time I wanted to slap her for her self destructive narcissism. But she is easy to forgive; she had absolutely no role models, and in a way it is a profoundly sad story. But she did pack a lot of living into her life, and I ended up feeling a lot of empathy and gratitude for just hearing her story, told from Cynthia Carr’s perspective. Because while Candy is a great subject, it still needed a fantastic storyteller. I know a few of the people she consulted for stories, and she got the general mood and the details exactly right.
  • Charles Bookman
    3.0 out of 5 stars A sory of self invention, and New York in the era of Andy Warhol
    Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2024
    Candy Darling was a transgender ingenue before there ever was such a thing. Part of Andy’s Warhol’s avant garde entourage in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Candy developed and flaunted a movie-star persona even while the hollow inside her grew deeper and more desperate. While the story does not end well, the reader will gain important insight into what happens when your sense of self does not match your biology. The book is especially interesting if you have a transgender person in your life because the author digs deeply into the process of self-invention on the outside and the hollow that remains on the inside. Read more at bookmanreader on blogspot.

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