The Baby

A former superstar of Andy Warhol's Factory offers an intimate tale of sex, drugs, art, and motherhood, based on video recordings

The Baby is not your average parenthood novel. Viva, a.k.a. Viva Superstar—actor, writer, painter, denizen of Andy Warhol's world-famous Factory, and early pioneer in video arts—weaves a tale of childbirth and motherhood with often-shocking candor, exploring a new mother's mixed emotions and her internal and external conflicts. Based on filmed records created by Viva's husband, Michael Auder, of their daughter's difficult birth and early development, and interspersed with stills from their life, Viva's addictive video novel tells the story of a fictional couple, Augustine and Frederick Marat, whose unorthodox parenting takes them from New York to Paris to Casablanca to California.

In her own unique style, Viva explores breast-feeding and breast pumps, infidelity and incest while offering startlingly intimate details of a family's singular lifestyle. An unabashedly autobiographical literary invention, alternately outrageous and honest, revelatory and touching, The Baby is truly one of a kind.