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

The Rollicking Life and Times of the Notorious Novel Candy isn't all that rollicking. But it's an important book for those interested in civil liberties. CANDY was the subject of many lawsuits, some of which involved Americans' rights to read what they please. The novel itself is a stinging satire on commercialism, consumer culture, and 1950s obsesssion with sex at the same time as hypocrisy reigned over all. Terry Southern was a pioneer in bringing the satirical impulses of Horace and Catullus into postwar writing with his famous troika of CANDY, THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN, and the screenplay for DR STRANGELOVE, voted by the American Film Institute to be the third funniest film of all time. Southern knew everyone, and his son writes down the names as fast as he can, but some detail is lost. I was curious to read more about how Doris Lessing fit into the pot-smoking crowd of the Left Bank in Paris during the 1950s, but we get her name and little more. The reader feels sorry for the actress Ewa Aulin, who took the role of Candy and you would have think she'd have been prepared for anything, but it seems from Nile Southern's descriptions she was abused by Marlon Brando and had a nervous breakdown due to this abuse and the producers crassly decided to keep her going by stabilizing her with a pharmacopia of drugs. Unfortunately Nile Southern treats this affair as though it were part of the rollicking story of his dad and Uncle Mason scamming the courts. But it leaves a sour taste in one's mouth.

The Rabelaisian story of Candy Christian was told in the novel Candy and was one of those "dirty" books, like _Portnoy's Complaint_ or _Lolita_ to which it is often compared, that people could read, and let others know they read, without embarrassment. Bursting into American print in the sixties, Candy had a grand, scandalous run on the bestseller list. The book had its share of legal problems because of its ribaldry, but the sixties were a time of sexual openness and the way had been cleared by courts which had already decided that such books as _Lady Chatterly's Lover_ and the _Tropic_ books of Henry Miller could not be prohibited. The real legal problems for Candy were not due to its supposed impropriety, but its proprietary issues. The exceptionally complicated legal determination of ownership of the book, a tussle between its two authors, the original French publisher, and assorted interested bystanders, is told in full detail in _The Candy Men: The Rollicking Life and Times of the Notorious Novel Candy_ (Arcade Publishing) by Nile Southern. The story of the book's genesis and the arguments over ownership (some not completely settled until long after the main characters herein had died) is told in quoted letters and legal documents, and sometimes in personal detail, since the author is the son of one of Candy's authors. _Candy_ was originally the brainchild of Terry Southern, a young writer who had a healthy interest in attractive and generous girls he met in Paris and Greenwich Village. Southern had started the novel, but had gotten more interested in writing another one, _The Magic Christian_. In 1957, missing his deadlines with his Parisian publisher Maurice Girodias, he began sharing bits of it by letter with his beat pal Mason Hoffenberg, who joined in authorship. The idea of the novel had been sold to Girodias to be part of his DB (Dirty Book) catalogue within the Olympia Press. He specialized in pornography that could be sold to English-speaking tourists. He commissioned _Candy_ as he had many other novels, for a one-time payment of a few hundred dollars, paid in fractions as he received the chapters. Like some of its illustrious Olympia Press predecessors (including _Lolita_, _Candy_, released in 1958, was more than mass-production porn. When it came to republication in America, Girodias wanted his slice of profits. Distrust set in, and even paranoia from Hoffenberg, and a decade of claims, counter-claims, and hurt followed. Southern went into the movies, with some large successes, like co-authorship of _Dr. Strangelove_. He said farewell to much of bohemian life and to his junkie companions. Hoffenberg became obsessed with his fair share of _Candy_, and with the lack of attention to him as coauthor while Southern continued to write and remain in the press. Girodias scratched for anything he could salvage, since his publishing house descended into bankruptcy. Putnam eventually published in hardcover in 1964, with t

The Candy Men is a privileged look inside the creative engines and marketplace forces that shape a culture. Here we have two writers, talented beyond anyone's estimation, crafting, polishing and worrying up a gem of modern literature, for which they were to be paid $300. In fact they apparently did do it for the money, but could not find it within themselves to hand in a quickie and forget about it. Far from being an accidental work of Genius, like a wacky novelty song that tops the charts, it turns out that Candy was an intentional reach for something far more than a mindless dirty story. That it succeeded as social commentary and a landmark in the vanquishing of censorship laws, not to mention being a smash for its various publishers (it is, still, a VERY FUNNY book) is a testament to the spot-on cultural acuity and careful artistry of authors Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg. What Nile Southern brings us in The Candy Men is nothing less than the real-life drama of legendary scenes like Paris and Greenwich Village in the fifties, London and L.A. in the sixties, fame, money, drugs, marriage, divorce, writer's block, movie deals, unscrupulous double- and triple-dealing, and a forever youthful All-American sweetheart named Candy whose heart (and other parts) will not deny a soul in need. If you love books and care about the process of writing and publishing, do not miss The Candy Men by Nile Southern.

Written in the uptight Eisenhower 50s in tag-team style by a poet/narcotics addict (Hoffenberg) and 'the ultimate hipster' (Southern), the novel Candy began life as a lark--a quick way to make a few bucks--and ended up a landmark work that not only defined what was (and was not) funny but also what was (and was not) obscene. Candy's strange trip--from initial conception, to completion, and eventual condemnation--is stylishly told, warts-and-all, in THE CANDY MEN via the letters of its main players as they conspire, debate, vilify, and argue with each other over the course of several years. This is engrossing and hilarious stuff at times, petty and mean-spirited at others, as 'he said/she said' type arguments rise and fall over authorship, ownership, division of labor, and (of course) division of money. In THE CANDY MEN, Nile Southern (son of Terry) comes clean about the making of the ultimate dirty book. "Good grief, it's Daddy!" indeed.

Candy remains a delightful anomaly...a funny, poetic, and insightful (and still hot) book(...). Nile Southern's Candy Men is a near forensic account of its inauspicious beginnings as a Left Bank lark between Terry Southern, Mason Hoffenberg, and Olympia Press impresario and mad scientist, Maurice Girodias. The book became an underground phenomenon in 1958 and then a mainstream bestseller in 1964. Sadly, Hoffenberg and Southern saw little of the book's profits thanks to the near insane business and legal logic of Girodias (a man who was both a shyster, patron, and visionary). Nile has created a timely and long overdue narrative of one of an exciting period in literary and cultural history - that weird transition from the Beat world of the 50s to the psychedelic meltdown of the 60s - in a prose style that communicates the idealism and passion of those years. However, the book is far from a nostalgia trip. It also serves as a cautionary tale to writers who get sucked into the crevice where art and commerce mix. Funny, inspiring, sad, and tragic. The Candy Men is just what we need in these grim and depressing times of the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney junta.