A Grand Guy: The Art and Life of Terry Southern

by Lee Hill

Book Overview

"When they're no longer surprised or astonished or engaged by what you say, the ball game is over. If they find it repulsive, or outlandish, or disgusting, that's all right, or if they love it, that's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380977869
• ISBN13: 9780380977864
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.1" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Good spadework in a first-ever bio

Lee Hill was disserved by his editors, who permitted him to compile a 'Terry Southern and his times' tome that is chock-a-block with cliches and party lists, and lacking in critical focus of the man. It tries to be both cultural history and biography, and fails on both counts. However, this is the first and badly needed biography of a man who brought fame and fortune to dozens of other people, and Hill deserves to be commended for his years of spade-work. Hill has no feel for American culture. He is apparently a Canadian who spent some time in London and is primarily a film historian. His sense of cultural history in a broader scale is ludicrously third-hand, delivered in broad generalities on the order of, "America was in the grip of repressive McCarthyism in the early fifties," or "Many well-meaning people were concerned about the plight of the negro." Paradoxically, Hill titles his book 'A Grand Guy,' although his lack of feel for modern American cultural history makes it impossible for him to tell us where Terry Southern's 'Grand Guy' persona came from. The 'Grand Guy' act, a compound of heartiness, mock-haughty superciliousness, and college-humor hyperbole, was a standard persona for those of Southern's generation. Many of Southern's contemporaries (from Gore Vidal to Bill Buckley and even Norman Mailer) played the same notes on their fiddles. This act was a continuation of the tongue-in-cheek snootiness you find in the early years of the Luce publications (where Time letter writers would be accorded a put-down caption on the order of, "Let Subscriber Brailsford Mend His Ways!") as well as The New Yorker (think of Peter Arno's captions or E.B. White's snotty captions for squibs pulled from local newspapers). This was the accepted "hip" idiom for the 20th Century Quality-Lit man, and it reached its full effulgence in the Esquire of the 1960s, when an unrelenting, over-the-top mockery of sacred cows became the mark of sophistication. Southern's tragedy, perhaps, is that he got stuck in what was essentially a passing style of ephemeral journalism, and he was unable to grow beyond it, and he had no friends to encourage him to grow beyond it. Thus, by the early 70s, his output was reduced to self-parodying letters to his friend and imitator at the National Lampoon, Michael O'Donoghue.

grand book

excellent and direly-needed bio in these irony-free days. a great picture of the swinging 60's too.

You're Too Hip, Baby

I've been waiting so long for a bio of the "quality lit" master that I was afraid I'd have to write it myself - thank God Lee Hill beat me to it! Southern practically invented modern cool, from landmark novels like "Candy" and "Flash & Filigree" to his groundbreaking work on films like "Dr Strangelove", "Easy Rider", "The Loved One" and "Barbarella." Without his talent for words, it's highly doubtful Peter Sellers would have had much of a career after Pink Panther; and without his superb sense of story and genuine gentleman's generosity, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda would probably only be known today for 1960s Z-grade biker epics. Bravo for Southern, and applause for Hill.