Southern - The Candy Men: The Rollicking Life and Times of the Notorious Novel Candy

Acknowledgments

M any thanks to the Seavers, Dick and Jeannette, to Greg Comer whose editorial advice and guidance were invaluable, and Arcade Publishing in general for their patience and support. To the Hoffenberg Estate; Daniel, Juliette, Zeline, Couquite, David and Kerry. Lilla Lyon and the Maurice Girodias Estate and the Olympia Press, George Plimpton, Leon Friedman, the Terry Southern Literary Trust, literary agents Susan Schulman and Sterling Lord, and the Fales Library at NYU. Carol Southern, for her spot-on editorial input, and Erin Clermont for her copyediting. Thanks also to Girodias biographer John de St. Jorre, bibliographer Patrick Kearney, Sam Merrill, Lee Hill, Walter Zacharius, Walter Minton, Cindy Degener, Leon Friedman, Gideon Cashman, Peter Israel, Mare Meeske, Alston Anderson, James Grauerholz, Edward de Grazia and Yeshiva University, Barney Rosset, Tom Lisanti, Michael McClure, Lee Server, James Marquand, Roger Mexico, Albert Goldman, and Jim Yoakum. Photographers: Steve Schapiro, William Claxton, Allen Ginsberg Trust, Aram Avakian courtesy of Alexandra Avakian, Jean Mohr, Pud Gadiot, the Southern and Hoffenberg Picture Collections, and Suzan Cooper. Al Goldstein and Screw, Eric Michaelson, Stuart Cornfeld, Han-Peter Litscher, D. A. Pennebaker, Michele Clarke and The Paris Review. Ken Fricklas for Web-hosting terrysouthern.com, Webmaster Damon Gitelman, Rob Smoke transcriptions, KGNU Boulder Community Radio, the Dahn Center, Neil Parker and Timeless Graphics, Mike Golden and Instant Classics, Jim Sikora, Lynn Munroe, Bo Altherr and Anchor Bay Video, Free Speech TV. Also to DJ Cheb i Sabbah for the tunes: 1 Giant Leap, Natascha Atlas, Tariq Ali. The Greek contingent: Yiannis kai Venettia, Panos kai Noni, my wife, Theodosia, and my daughters, Nefeli-Marie and Chloe-Caroline Southern.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint unpublished and previously published materials:

The Terry Southern Estate and The Terry Southern Literary Trust: Letters and other writings by Terry Southern. Reprinted by permission of Nile Southern and Joe LoGiudice cotrustees, and by special arrangement with Susan Schulman, a Literary Agency.

The Mason Hoffenberg Estate, Daniel and Juliette Hoffenberg: Letters and excerpts from Mason Hoffenbergs journals. Reprinted by special arrangement with Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.

The Maurice Girodias Estate, Lilla Lyon, Juliette Kahane and ValerieMandac: Letters and other writings by Maurice Girodias. Reprinted by permission.

Nelson Algren: Excerpt from a letter to Terry Southern. Reprinted by permission of Donadio & Olson, Inc., copyright by Nelson Algren.

Black Spring Press (U.K.): Excerpts from The Paris Olympia Press, An Annotated Bibliography with Introductory Essays by Maurice Girodias & Patrick J. Kearney (Black Spring Press: London, 1987). Reprinted by permission.

Fales Library, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University: Excerpts from letters from the archive of Sterling Lord. Reproduced by permission.

Grand Street, Jean Stein, ed.: Excerpts from Terry Southerns Flashing on Gid (Vol. 10, #1, 1991) and The Refreshing Ambiguity of the Dj Vu. (Vol. 11, #3, 1992). Reprinted by permission.

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.: Excerpts from Candy 1958, 1959, 1962, 1964 by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg. Reprinted by permission.

HarperCollins, Inc.: Excerpts from A Grand Guy: The Art and Life of Terry Southern, by Lee Hill, 2000 by Lee Hill. Reprinted by permission.

Instant Classics; The Culture Quick Mart, www.instantclassics.com, Mike Golden, ed.: The Next Man to Go: An Interview with Accursed Publisher Maurice Girodias by Mike Golden, 1999 by Mike Golden. Reproduced by permission.

The Nation: Excerpt from Donkey Man by Twilight by Nelson Algren. Reprinted by permission from the May 18, 1964, issue of The Nation.

The Paris Review: Excerpts from The Art of Fiction: Henry Green, (Volume 5, #19, Summer, 1958). Reprinted by permission.

Playboy Enterprises: Excerpts from the article Mason Hoffenberg Gets in a Few Licks: An Eight-Martini Chat with the Co-author of Candy, Who Reminisces About William Burroughs, Terry Southern, Bob Dylanand the Night He Didnt Get Raped by Eleven Faggots, by Sam Merrill, which originally appeared in Playboy magazine (November 1973). Attempts were made to contact the author of the article, Sam Merrill, without success.

George Plimpton: Excerpts from letters. Reproduced by permission of Russell & Volkening. Copyright George Plimpton.

Random House, Inc.: Excerpts from Venus Bound: The Erotic Voyage of the Olympia Press and Its Writers, by John de St. Jorre, copyright 1996 by John de St. Jorre. Reprinted by permission.

Seven Stories Press: Excerpts from Paul Krassners Impolite Interviews, ed. Paul Krassner. Copyright 1999. Reprinted by permission of Paul Krassner.

William Styron: Extracts from Transcontinental with Tex reprinted by permission of the author and Don Congdon Associates. 1996 by William Styron, first published in The Paris Review, issue 138.

Afterword

S hortly after Terrys death, while in the Canaan house, I received a call from Marc Toberoff, an entertainment lawyer specializing in intellectual property copyright, in Los Angeles. Marc informed me that under the GATT Treaty, 1996, a special provision allowed retroactive copyright registration for works published in European countries in English. Heretofore, these works were not covered by the manufacturing clause of the U.S. copyright code.

When I returned to Boulder, I printed the appropriate forms off the Internet, and, after signing them, forwarded them to Juliette Hoffenberg, executrix of the Hoffenberg Estate, via Sterling Lord. And so, in 1999, Candy received its first legitimate U.S. copyright.

In 2001, the film Candy came out on DVD. It was brilliantly marketed as a limited edition, in bright pink packaging resembling a tin of expensive chocolates. Another version was packaged as an exact replica of a 1960s circular birth-control pill dispenser. With kitschy coasters of all the stars and on-set gossip about the film, the limited edition sold out within a few months. A new print of the film was re-released theatrically in 2003 in France, Portugal, and Japan.

But perhaps the most astonishing thing to happen in the baroque history of Candy occurred in the early 1990s. The Book-of-the-Month Club offered Candy as a selection and produced a handsome edition for their mass readership. Sterling Lord was elated. The book that a mere thirty-five years earlier had to be smuggled into the country and was deemed unpublishable was now endorsed by the largest, most popular book club in America. Good griefCandy had gone mainstream!

APPENDIX A

Selected Interviews with Terry Southern

Concerning Candy and Pornography

From an unpublished interview with Albert Goldman, 1973:

ALBERT GOLDMAN: Why do you sometimes sign your letters with girls names?

TS: Because theyre chatty. And obscene. The chattiness gives it a girlish thing, and then signing Cynthia or Paula after a lot of obscenity makes a curious juxtaposition.... Letter writing, I think, is the best of all writing, because its the purest. Its like writing to yourself, but youve got an excuse to do it because this person will dig it. And you can transmit information in a strange way, you can sort of mix it, so they wonder, Well, is this true? You say something outlandish, and then you throw in, John and Mary just ran away to Hawaii, and so its hahaha, but in fact its true.