Valerie Solanas’s shooting of Andy Warhol

Valerie Solanas’s shooting of Andy Warhol remains present in this entry not as a replay of the attack, but as a danger that resurfaces in ordinary life. On Friday, July 8, 1977, Warhol writes that Solanas has been seen around Greenwich Village, Manhattan, and that, while cruising there with Victor, he was afraid they might meet. The possibility of seeing her turns a familiar outing into an uncertain encounter with the person who had nearly killed him.

The Shooting and Its Aftermath

The diary identifies Solanas through the history of the shooting: she had shot Warhol in 1968 and nearly killed him. It supplies no account of the attack itself. Instead, the past enters the present through the prospect of meeting her again, almost a decade later.

An Encounter Left Unresolved

Warhol considers two possible reactions from Solanas: she might try to shoot him again, or she might act friendly. The entry does not say that they met, or that she made contact. Its tension lies in that uncertainty: the old violence is neither repeated nor settled, but remains one possibility among those Warhol imagines as he moves through the Village.

The Event’s Continuing Presence

By recording his fear before any encounter occurs, the diary shows the shooting’s continuing place in Warhol’s daily awareness. The brief passage connects a 1968 near-fatal event to a specific outing in 1977, while leaving its aftermath unresolved: Solanas has been reported nearby, Warhol anticipates what might happen, and the entry ends without reporting a meeting.