“If you ever want to learn what’s wrong with you, don’t look in the mirror; give Brigid [Berlin] a glass of wine and she’ll tell you.”
 
Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries, February 17, 1984

 “I read the Ruth Kligman book Love Affair about her ‘love affair’ with Jackson Pollock. . . In the book she says something like, ‘I had to get away from Jackson and I ran as far as possible.’ So do you know where she went? Sag Harbor. He lived in [the] Springs. So that’s—what? Six miles? And she was making it like she went to the other side of the world. And then she said, ‘The phone rang—how oh how did he ever find me?’ I’m sure she called hundreds of people to give them the number in case he asked them.”
 
Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries, December 12, 1976

“[Andy Warhol would ask] ‘Brig, when is your mother going to have her portrait done by me?’ And I’d say, ‘Andy, my mother would never have her portrait done by you. I don’t want a portrait by you. I can’t stand them. I wouldn’t have one of your portraits hanging on my wall if you paid me a million dollars!’ Maybe that’s why we were so close, because I used to tell him the truth. I never liked his art! He used to offer me his art for Christmas, and I told him I’d rather he get me a washing machine and dryer. And he did! Wasn’t I a fool?”
 
Brigid Berlin, via Kevin Sessums, I Left It on the Mountain

“Everything’ll be all right, desolation is desolation everywhere and desolation is all we got and desolation aint so bad.”
 
Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels

American and English editions are rarely identical. Obviously the English add the letter U to words like "color" and "labor." The titles might also diverge. For example, Craig Brown's inventive and magnificent biography of Queen Elizabeth II's tragic (but haughty) sister was published in the United Kingdom as Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret. The American edition was shortened to Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret. Nearly always the dust jackets are different, as it is the publisher that commissions the art on the cover. 

Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels was no exception to the rule. The dust jackets were strikingly (and thematically) different. This semi-autobiographical novel, an installment in Kerouac's Duluoz Legend series, was written around the time of the publication of Kerouac's most iconic novel, On the Road, in 1957. It languished as an underground title for nearly a decade until finally published in the United States in 1965 by Coward-McGann and in the United Kingdom in 1966 by Andre Deutsch. Which publisher designed the better jacket?

This is an easy call. The Pop Art design by the Irish artist Michael Farrell for the English edition is not only eye-catching; it is magnificent. How fun a poster-size version would be hanging on the wall of a midcentury home. Its design was very much of that moment. The realistic etching depicting scenes from the book in the American edition is also of that time period, but in a manner that does not translate in 2019, unlike the "retro" English edition. Part of the problem is that the style of the American edition became overdone, frequently imitated in cheaply produced movie tie-in mass paperbacks.

The only issue with the English edition is that it is not precisely of its time. Kerouac's Desolation Angels is set in the mid-1950s, and the Andy Warhol-inspired soup cans in the illustration did not explode onto the art scene until the early 1960s when they were exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. 

The copy of Desolation Angels (English Edition) from the library of Gore Vidal (stamped "From the Library of GORE VIDAL), is available via the Nick Harvill Libraries website. Though Jack Kerouac was straight, he did have a minor dalliance with Vidal. Moreover, a character based upon Gore Vidal appears in Kerouac's Duluoz Legend series (though not this particular installment).

Enjoy this dust jacket dust-up? Check out others here. 

“The crowd outside the church screamed … ‘Andy!’ There was the biggest mob I’ve ever seen around a church. We went in and they had folding chairs near the door. Oprah Winfrey gave a speech. … And at the car rental we’d seen all these glamorous names like ‘Clint Eastwood’ and ‘Barbara Walters’ .... And watching this storybook wedding, you just wonder about what it’ll be like when the divorce comes.”

Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries, April 26, 1986, Hyannis, Massachusetts, Wedding of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver

Maria Shriver was the second generation of the Kennedy family to marry a professional actor. Her aunt Patricia Kennedy famously wed Peter Lawford (he was JFK's link to Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack). Her daughter Katherine became the third such generation earlier this summer when she wed Chris Pratt. 

The Schwarzenegger/Shriver marriage produced four children and proved more enduring than Andy Warhol himself. He died within a year. Three decades later, Arnold and Maria have separated but remain legally married. How fascinated Warhol would have been by the tabloid scandal that prompted their separation. For that matter, Andy Warhol would love so much about 21st Century popular culture. His prediction that in the future everyone would be famous (infamous?) for fifteen minutes has come to pass. 

Image Credit: Andy Warhol's Exposures

"'[W]e went to Marguerite Littman's for lunch to meet Rock Hudson but his plane was delayed and I had to leave to do more interviews. Marguerite invented something great for dessert--chocolate soup! It's orange juice and Grand Marnier and chocolate, hot."

Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries, June 21, 1978

Check out the recipe for Marguerite Littman's chocolate soup in Dining with the Famous and the Infamous.

Image Credit: R.S.V.P., Menus for Entertaining from People Who Really Know How

“And the food at Kitty [Miller]’s—it was the canned frozen stuff again. At first you think that maybe these rich people don’t know any better because they have been going to charity dinners all of their lives, but then they do go to La Grenouille, too, and that’s really good food. So they must notice the difference. And there were six servants serving the canned food.”
 
Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries, December 31, 1976

Image Credit: Andy Warhol's Exposures

“Got up late and went back to sleep and I still wasn’t ready when Fred was ready to go at 1:00. Taxi to YSL’s for lunch. Fred had to lie and say that I was [handicapped] so that the driver would take us such a short distance. The driver looked me over and said, ‘Yes, I can see that.’”
 
Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries, September 4, 1977

Image Credit: Warhol by Makos

“Got the invitation to President Carter’s inaugural. It was addressed to (laughs) ‘Mr. and Mrs. Andy Warhol.’ Don’t you love it.”
 
Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries, December 27, 1976

Image Credit: Wikipedia and Andy Warhol's Exposures

“Brigid went home from work on Friday and when she looked around for her cat, Billy, she couldn’t find him. So she ran to the pet store before it closed and bought another cat! Can you believe a person would do that? For $300. Then she brought the new cat home and she heard a meow and opened the closet and there was Billy in a pail, so she returned the new cat.”
 
Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries, February 15, 1981

Image Credit: 25 Cats Named Sam and Holy Cats by Andy Warhol’s Mother