Its story — and ‘The Candy Men’ — begins in Paris in the late 1940s. Nile Southern, with a mixture of narrative and first hand accounts, sets the scene with all its excitement, curiosity and exploration of artistic possibilities as well as acknowledging its chancers, excesses and indulgences. It was here that Terry Southern met many writers and artists who, later, would go on to have cultural impact: The Beats, the Merlin crowd, the Paris Review crowd, as well as the two men who helped create ‘Candy’ and its ensuing chaos — Mason Hoffenberg and Maurice Girodias.

Like Terry, Mason Hoffenberg came to Paris on the GI Bill to study but spent more time in the cafes writing poetry, smoking hashish, drinking Pernod and chatting up girls. They met in the Café Royal on St. Germain and recognised in each other similar sensibilities. They liked to talk a good game, concoct elaborate set-ups, offer cutting remarks and asides, all with the goal of pulling off the best ‘put on’. They were a witty, dynamic (if also exhausting and intimidating) double act. It was through this energetic banter that Candy was developed.

The audacious, dandyish publisher Maurice Girodias was introduced to Mason and Terry through the Merlin crowd who had him publish the first English language Beckett. Girodias’ Olympia Press specialised in books that pushed the boundaries and caused scandal including Henry Miller’s Tropics books and Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’. Taking advantage of these hungry, eager unpublished writers, he launched the Travellers’ Companion Series, a collection of English language erotic novels. Mason Hoffenberg, with a newly acquired heroin habit, began to develop his alias Faustino Perez, writing ‘Until She Screams’. Terry, although interested in the flamboyant Girodias, continued to work on his own writing as his stories were appearing in various magazines in Paris and America. In the beginning, the excitement and novelty of producing these “DBs” (Dirty Books) and a fairly regular income meant that a blind eye was turned to Girodias’ unorthodox and haphazard business practices. This lack of attention would soon haunt Girodias and many of his authors including Terry and Mason.

By the mid-50s, both Terry and Mason were married and travelling round Europe and America. They would often meet up again in Paris, but, mostly, kept in touch through writing letters. Nile reproduces many of these letters throughout ‘The Candy Men’. As ever, their desire to make each other laugh and their one-upmanship in taking things further is great reading, and as well as ideas for stories, musings on their locations, silly sign offs, there is bitchy gossip about all the writers and artists they know although it’s hard to know if any of the stories are true or just more of their mad concoctions. Terry, in Geneva, writing his novels ‘Flash and Filigree’ and ‘The Magic Christian’, finally decided that Candy, the recurring in-joke between them, should get the Olympia treatment, and with Mason back in Paris to deal with Girodias, it became an official project. The letters that continue back and forth between Mason and Terry throughout the writing of Candy continue to entertain and also highlight their thoughts on the process of writing. The notion that a book in the Travellers Companion Series was a bit throwaway is confirmed in passages where Terry advises a blocked Mason that spinning out dialogue was an easy way to make up the required amount of pages. Yet, ‘Candy’ was not a book that they knocked out in a couple of letters and, in fact, was presented to Girodias a year later than was requested. They constantly rewrote scenes, edited each other’s work, debated on the exact euphemism needed, making sure that the overall tone of the book was just right as satire and also as something fun and sexy. The letters also reveal the changing nature of their relationship as Terry’s writing life became more successful and Mason’s heroin addiction worsened. Recurring bouts of writer’s block meant the bulk of Candy was written by Terry, with Mason contributing the hospital scenes and his paranoia and jealousy is evident although good humour and camaraderie prevail.

Mason’s paranoia wasn’t helped by Girodias, who would continue to put off paying the authors for as long as he could get away with it. Sometimes, he would pay when he wasn’t asked, the transactions unlogged, and it all meant that dealing with him was confusing. It became more confusing once ‘Candy’ was published as it quickly came to the attention of the French authorities who banned the book, making it more sought after within the ex-pat community. Pirate editions appeared and Girodias reprinted the book under a different title, ‘Lollipop’. It’s unclear what editions were published by Girodias and which were published by other operations but its growing notoriety meant that money was made, although not by Terry or Mason. Mason, with no sustained writing projects, spent a great deal of time trying to get to the bottom of all the intrigue and get paid. Terry, meanwhile, was gaining an international reputation as a satirical writer of note. He cared about his share of the ‘Candy’ money, but was more interested in moving on to the next writing task. His other novels had led to screenwriting and a lifestyle that was exciting, glamorous and lucrative. The success with Stanley Kubrick and ‘Dr Strangelove’ meant that his American publishers, Putnum, were interested in releasing a US edition of ‘Candy’. Here, ‘The Candy Men’ spends a great deal of time trying to unravel the convoluted copyright problems facing the Candy project. Terry and Mason were fighting to be released from the Olympia contract and deal with Putnam without Girodias. He was trying to keep the ‘Cand’y moneymaking going, fighting the censors and trying to set up a UK edition on the side without the authors’ knowledge. The pirate editions were still flooding the market, with Girodias’s help, sabotaging Terry and Mason’s share in the Putnam contract which had inserted a piracy clause. The differences in French and American copyright laws too added more contradictions and confusions to these lengthy legal battles that even stretched the lawyers’ patience. All this makes for a less enthralling narrative, but it serves as a great instruction on how not to conduct your business dealings. By 1966, when it was all settled, the only parties who still had money from the Candy success was Putnam and the pirates.

Still, its success meant that a cinematic treatment was inevitable, and under the direction of the French director Christian Marquand, filming began. A star-studded cast including Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Ringo Starr, James Coburn, Charles Aznavour and Walter Matthau would seem like an enticing, exciting prospect, but Terry Southern walked out on the film when it became clear that the finished product would be nothing like the book. As seemed fitting for ‘Cand’y, chaos reigned on the set with all the sex and drugs decadence of the times, fun for all involved except the leading lady, Ewa Aulin, who had a nervous breakdown trying to deal with Brando’s attentions. The finished film, when released in 1968, was panned.

And so the story of ‘Candy’ winds down as the ‘70s begin, its fortunes, like those of its authors, intrinsically linked with the era in which it was produced. Mason Hoffenberg divorced his wife, unable to kick his heroin addiction. He died of lung cancer in 1986. The Olympia Press closed down operations, though the wily Girodias still managed to maintain his elegant lifestyle through writing his memoirs. He died, suddenly, of a heart attack in 1990. Meanwhile, Terry’s writing projects dried up and his reputation diminished. He occasionally contributed articles to magazines, polished some scripts, and briefly joined the writing team for Saturday Night Live. In 1995, he collapsed on his way teach a screenwriting class in Columbia University and died four days later.

In writing ‘The Candy Men’, Nile Southern not only tells the story of one book and its impact but is assesses his father’s place within the late 20th century literary scene. The narrative of that time is now so well known that we all know that the story will go from post war idealism through to success, then debauch and decline and Nile gives us no surprises in that respect. Those, too, who have read Lee Hill’s biography of Terry Southern, ‘A Grand Guy’, will be familiar with the biographical narrative. However, I am happy to read anything of Terry’s, and his small published output meant I greedily hoovered up the letters included in ‘The Candy Men’, though they only hinted at the hilarity found in his books and screenplays. If you are a newcomer to Terry Southern’s work, start there; read ‘Candy’. I went back to it after finishing this and snorted all the way through it again.

Vikki Reilly is from Edinburgh, where she works for a small independent publisher. She runs a monthly book club, attempts to make her own clothes, loves to dance and will forever dream of being the ultimate rock n' roll frontwoman despite rarely singing in public. She has decided to start writing again after years of procrastination.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.