Synopses & Reviews
Acclaimed novelist, Beat godfather, prolific screenwriter, and one of the founders of New Journalism, as well as the only guy to wear shades on the Sgt. Peters album cover, Terry Southern was an audacious, outrageous American original.
Now Dig This, the first Southern anthology since
Red Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes emerged over 30 years ago, is a wild, uncensored, and hugely entertaining collection that spans the gamut of his stellar career.
From an interview with Henry Green during the salad days of
The Paris Review, to his account of life neck-high in girls and cocaine aboard the Rolling Stones tour jet, Now Dig This is a journey through Terry Southerns America, spanning the 1940s Texas, the buttoned-down 1950s through the sexual revolution, the cinema revolution, the ex-pat scene, drugs, rock'n'roll, and the rise and fall of Quality Lit-ville.
Gathered from Southerns archives are interviews, early short stories, accounts of his experiences as the Rolling Stones' court reporter, his hilarious unpublished expose on the Cuban invasion, outrageous short narratives such as the keystone-cops satire on capital punishment; "Wormball Man", as well as intimate, at times scandalous portraits of William Burroughs, Abbie Hoffman, Staley Kubrick, Maurice Girodias, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Alex Trocci, and the early Stones of Swinging London. Also included is what the New York Observer described as the coldest story ever written, and Southern's Esquire article about the 1968 National Democratic Convention, where he was a pivotal figure in the riots and a key witness in the Conspriacy Trial of the Chicago Seven.
Terrys literary body of work embodies some of the most extreme and extremely funny writing in contemporary American letters. Now Dig This is a vivid testament from an American literary lion, and a hilarious, engrossing, and enlightening statement on life in America today.
Review
Existential, quintessential Terry, disgraceful and delightful. Peter Matheissen
Review
"Terry Southern was the class clown of the quality-hip scene, larger, weirder, and a lot funnier than life." Jules Feiffer
Review
...its hard not to like Southern. He was big-hearted and irrepressible, an optimist of excess when it seemed such things were possible. A tidy collection... Kirkus Reviews
Review
"...this archive of interviews, letters, skits, and story outlines will leave you guffawing at Southern's mix of intellectualism and bawdiness." Adrienne Miller, Esquire