Viva grew up in a very Catholic home surrounded by figures of the Virgin Mary, Bibles, and pictures of First Communion, and lived with the nuns until she was twenty years old.
The article notes that she had a degree from a Marymount College and had attended art schools in Paris, including a year at the Sorbonne.
Throughout Goldsmith's representation of tone and mood, it is somewhat negative as they scrimmage through her apartment junk, talk about her rough life, and the need for sex and drugs.
Viva's words are transcribed in detail, including conversation about her family, an unpaid ConEdison bill, drug use, and her precarious financial situation.
[3] La Dolce Viva takes place mostly in Warhol's new loft studio which has been named 'The Factory', which was full of his helpers and hangers-on.
Some parts of the interview took place in Viva's East 83rd Street brownstone apartment which is scattered with the mixture of clean and dirty clothes, underwear, dishes in the sink, food on the counter and stacks of old magazines and papers; Goldsmith did not appear to have qualms about revealing most of her subject's home address.
According to contemporary New York Times review of the book, La Dolce Viva gave an insight to Warhol's relationship to other people.
Since the publication of La Dolce Viva, Hoffmann has contested the veracity of the article and stated that she did not give Arbus permission to photograph her naked.