A most welcome collection for longtime Southern fans and neophytes alike.
A gathering of uncollected work by the celebrated master of black comedy.
Terry Southern (1924-1995) was known for his supremely sardonic take on the human condition as well as a “gonzo style [that] was imbued with a self-consciousness informed by his own quasi-celebrity,” in the words of his son and editor, Nile. The present volume existed as a working manuscript for decades, a companion of sorts to an unpublished novel called Youngblood. “It’s no wonder Terry didn’t return to The Hipsters, considering the intensely creative literary friendships he developed after his time at the Sorbonne [1948-1952],” writes Nile. “Rather than hanging out with lost souls, academics, and insouciant friends, Terry was mixing it up with poets, publishers, and grand eccentrics like Alex Trocchi, George Plimpton, Marilyn Meeske, Iris Owens, Doc Humes, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso.” The book is a hodgepodge of story sketches, ideas for books and screenplays, treatments, and other rough draft–ish pieces, all marked by Southern’s obvious pleasure at putting together roguish sentences. Some of the pieces could conceivably be outtakes from works like The Magic Christian, as when a narrator, having kept a truck driver from running over a sleeping junkie, suggests that he’s hauling not his stated load but instead, à la Henri-George Clouzot’s influential film The Wages of Fear, explosives. Among the best pieces in the book are sample pages from Southern’s screenplay for A Clockwork Orange, which, in the end, Stanley Kubrick rejected in favor of his own treatment, keeping Southern on as a producer for a time and then dropping him from the project entirely. Another revealing piece is a kind of keeping-busy thought experiment that Kubrick assigned him, coming up with sequels to Dr. Strangelove. The resulting “Strangelove Quartette” (1963), a screenplay of sorts, contains a provocation at the outset: "Does Strangelove have any emotional ties? Possibility of Sue Lyon being Strangelove’s daughter. Everyone else begging for shaft-priority.” Nothing came of it, and that’s lamentable indeed.
A most welcome collection for longtime Southern fans and neophytes alike.Pub Date: May 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-953862-00-6
Page Count: 292
Publisher: ANTIBOOKCLUB
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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