Yours in Haste and Adoration: Selected Letters of Terry Southern

Terry Southern was one of the most outrageous and penetrating satirists of the twentieth century, judged by Gore Vidal to be 'the most profoundly witty writer' of their generation. As a novelist (Candy, The Magic Christian, Blue Movie), screenwriter (Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider, Barbarella), pioneer of the New Journalism at Esquire, and writer for Saturday Night Live, Southern had an incomparable gift for exposing the grotesqueries of the American Way of Life while living it to the full. Southern's list of correspondents reads like a cultural Who's Who of the last half-century. In this collection we find letters to fellow writers including Nelson Algren, William S. Burroughs, George Plimpton, Alex Trocchi, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Green, Gregory Corso, playwright Jack Gelber, and Mason Hoffenberg (co-author of Candy). His letters extend to Hollywood luminaries such as Stanley Kubrick, Dennis Hopper, and George Segal. Southern also corresponded through the years with legendary performers and artists of the day, among them Lenny Bruce, Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Larry Rivers, and gallery scene-maker/impresario Robert Fraser. Even more idiosyncratic and outrageous when writing to his friends than he was for an audience, Southern dashed off a plethora of hilarious, shocking, frequently offensive, and unprintable missives to his many friends and colleagues. As this brilliant collection reveals, Southern was one of the great letter writers of the twentieth century.