Free Valerie Solanas: The Defiant Life of the Woman Who Wrote SCUM by Breanne Fahs Page A

the site of the Phoenix Art Museum. (Photo: Argenta Images.)

    Louis Zwiren, Valerie’s romantic partner during the late 1970s, seen here in his New York State Social Services photograph, ca. 1975. (Photo courtesy of Louis Zwiren.)

    Valerie at the
High Times
offices in early 1977. (Photo by Howard Berman. Reprinted with permission from
High Times
magazine.)

    Valerie’s mother chose to bury her at the bucolic St. Mary’s Catholic Church Cemetery at 5612 Ox Road in Fairfax Station, Virginia. This church, also known as “Our Lady of Sorrows,” once inspired Clara Barton to found the American Red Cross after tending to wounded soldiers here during the Civil War.

acknowledgments
    The work of constructing the life of Valerie Solanas —doing justice to her complexity and uniqueness—has been a daunting and often overwhelming task, one that has called on so many sources of support for these many years. Sifting through thousands of fragments and grappling with the enormity of Valerie herself has put me in the debt of numerous people, most specifically those whom I have interviewed over the years about Valerie’s life and work. The book absolutely would not exist without the tremendous effort put forth in the early and mid-1990s by film director Mary Harron, who managed the herculean feat of constructing and reconstructing Valerie’s story with the help of her research and film team for the 1996 movie I Shot Andy Warhol . When she handed me boxes full of documents in September 2008, I knew that I finally had enough fragments to write this book.
    I also extend deep gratitude to Ti-Grace Atkinson, a force of nature in her own right and one of the founders of the radical feminist movement, who not only spent an entire weekend telling me her story but also became a friend, mentor, confidante, and teacher. To radical feminists Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Dana Densmore, Kathie Sarachild, and Rosalyn Baxandall, your stories and words have changed my life, taught me how to see the root of things, and added much depth and nuance to Valerie as provocateur. Thanks especially to Jane Caputi for capturing that combination of tragedy and awe that Valerie’s life summons for those of us still drawn to her orbit. Many thanks to Ben Morea, who left his other life in order to return as himself to tell the stories of Valerie and Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker. His graciousness and generosity attest to the profound connections made possible by radical social movements. To Jeremiah Newton, Valerie’s “baby brother,” and to Louis Zwiren, thank you for the conversations that painted Valerie as wholly human and, in these small circles, truly well loved.
    I have immense gratitude for the team at the Feminist Press and for my editor, Amy Scholder, whose wisdom, patience, and dedication to Valerie’s story have ensured the publication of not only this manuscript but also the 2004 Verso Press edition of SCUM Manifesto . Many thanks to Romaine Perin, for copyediting the book, and to Jeanann Pannasch, Elizabeth Koke, and Drew Stevens, Feminist Press warriors.
    Thank you to Ultra Violet, Lorraine Miller, Vivian Gornick, Sylvia Miles, CJ Scheiner, Paul Morrissey, Bud Maxwell Vasconcellos, Jacqueline Ceballos, Jo Freeman, Sheila Tobias, and Margo Feiden, who contextualized Andy Warhol and the Factory, filled in vivid details from the day of the shooting, mused about Valerie, and added further contradictions to such an already complicated woman. Donny Smith and Freddy Baer, your groundwork on Valerie paved the way for this story—thank you. I am enormously grateful to Valerie’s cousin, the ever gracious and recently departed Robert Fustero, for providing access to the family stories, photos, and idiosyncrasies, and to Valerie’s son, David Blackwell, and Valerie’s sister, Judith Martinez Solanas, for what they gave.
    Certainly, this book would still be languishing in purgatory without the institutional support I have received from Arizona State