Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes

Before the "new journalism" of Wolfe, Talese, and Kubrick, before the Brave Gonzo World of Hunter S. Thompson, there was legendary cult writer Terry Southern. This widely recognized underground classic is a collection of Southern's short pieces--two dozen hilarious, well-observed sketches which expose the hypocrisy of American social mores.

Born in 1924, Terry Southern was a novelist and screenwriter famous for his dark, biting satirical style. From the postwar Paris literary movement of the 1950s to the Greenwich Village Beat writers to the swinging London of the 1960s, Southern left an indelible mark on the style of American storytelling in the twentieth century. As one of the screenwriters behind the Academy Award–nominated Dr. Strangelove, as well as The Cincinnati Kid and Easy Rider, he helped to create the independent film movement in the 1970s. In the 1980s he was one of the writers on Saturday Night Live. His literary output includes Flash and Filigree, The Magic Christian, Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes, and Blue Movie, among others. He died in 1995.