Maud Newton has an interesting post about the controversy surrounding the authenticity of former Chelsea author Nabokov's Lolita. Maurice Girodias, the publisher of Lolita, and many other important books, also lived at the Chelsea. An article published in The Nation in 2004 suggests that Girodias may have been Valerie Solanas' original target, afterall he was her publisher and a lot of people want to shoot their publisher, but since he wasn't at home, she decided to go to the Factory and shoot Andy Warhol instead.
"...Solanas was thrilled by her status as a soon-to-be-published writer, but it wasn't long before she began obsessing about the seemingly restrictive legal boilerplate of Girodias's contract.
On June 3, 1968, Solanas stopped by Girodias's office or his room at the Chelsea Hotel, depending on the source. She carried a gun in a paper bag. Girodias was out that day, so she proceeded to the Factory. There she shot Warhol in the chest three times. (And the art critic Mario Amayo as well--no one ever seems to remember the poor guy.) She aimed the gun next at Warhol's manager, Fred Hughes, who uttered a line that could have been lifted from one of Warhol's deadpan films: "Oh, there's the elevator. Why don't you get on, Valerie?" She did. That evening, she turned herself in..."
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