This is an impossible memoir for me to pass by because I remember Alexandra Auder as a small child in Topanga Canyon, around 1974/75, when she and her mom Viva, and father, Michel Auder, lived next door to us. Mostly I wouldn't say I liked Topanga, except there were moments of an outside culture opening up to me when someone from another world, such as Manhattan or Paris, came to the Canyon. Whenever I was in the presence of Michel and especially Viva, good times were attached to that world. Viva and Michel became good friends with my dad Wallace Berman, and mom Shirley Berman. Numerous dinners and causal hanging out took place, and I always loved Viva’s approach to life, which stuck with me as dramatic and cinematic at the same time.
Michel would be videotaping everything in front of him, and with his cute daughter and Viva as the stars of his work; it was a remarkable work of art done in front of one’s eyes. I subscribed to two publications then and read them from cover to back cover: Rolling Stone and Andy Warhol’s Interview. Being with Viva, Alex, and company was like Interview coming to life before me. Walking around Soho recently and coming upon Viva’s daughter’s memoir at McNally Jackson seemed destiny at work. And since I wrote a biography of my childhood with my boho parents, I already, without reading her book, felt a companionship with her world. However, she had a different type of personality. My parents, thick and thin, stayed together like glue, but Viva and Michel went off to their separate paths (sort of), and Alexandra’s world is not that far off from mine on a level. We were raised by artists with strong egos, and often as a child, we had to live and deal with that attention placed on other things, such as artwork. Not an easy landscape for a child, and Alexandra’s book covers that territory very well.
Most of her childhood/teenage years were spent in the legendary (rightfully so) Chelsea Hotel, which is the flip and alternative version of Kay Thompson’s Eloise series about a little girl who lives in the Plaza Hotel in New York. It’s interesting to compare both books because it shows how large Manhattan culture is or was and society is as complex as in a classic Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo novel. Life at the Chelsea is exposed to us, and such a unique location where great people live and work, including Alexandra and her family
Most Andy Warhol superstars of the 1960s/1970s were very strong characters. Viva may be the most assertive personality among other prominent figures in that world. One characteristic thing I remember of Viva is that when you talk to her, she gets very close to you, almost eye-to-eye, chest-to-chest, which sounds intimidating, but it was more of a charming eccentricity. I like her and the family at the time, and I have nothing but good memories of the clan. I think many readers would be alarmed by some of the activity and things said in this memoir, but as one lives it, that world was very open and often friendly, although temperamental in some cases. My dad and Viva got along significantly; she knew he respected her for who and what she did. And Wallace felt the same for Michel.
It seems daughter/mother books are popular, and one should read Don’t Call Me Home for that reason, but for me, its the time spent with interesting people and places like the magical Chelsea Hotel, which is not the Plaza Hotel, but equal if not more so than that other place.
I loved the book.
have you communicated with her?