I'm fascinated by Valerie Solanas. Best known for shooting Andy Warhol, she was also a writer who completed a play and the most violent feminist manifesto to date Scum Manifesto. In her novel Valerie, Sara Stridsberg imagines a past for Valerie that shaped her into a brilliant, unstable, criminal. Famously little is known about Solanas so Stridsberg has free rein to invent what she pleases. The result is a gobbledegook of repeated images, scenes, and snippets of Solanas' texts. Whether it's intended to be an homage to the beat writers or not, it fails to excite or provoke. Though there are flashes of good writing, the majority of the book is contrived - relying on devices that grate more than illuminate.