The Magic Christian

Terry Southern

May 2011 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

The New York Times–bestselling author’s cult classic skewers America’s obsession with money, fame, guns, and sex—“A satirical gem” (John Berendt). Guy Grand, an eccentric billionaire prankster, is rich enough to do whatever he likes. And what he likes is to carefully execute projects where he can cauterize by ridicule what the rest of the world ignores: complacency, greed, corruption, and idiocy. Determined to “make it hot for people,” Grand spends his billions staging a series of hilarious, sometimes bewildering stunts, lampooning along the way the American holy cows of money, status, power, beauty, media, and stardom. Concocting deliciously perverse mayhem, he throws a million one-hundred-dollar bills into an enormous vat of steaming offal, proving just what people will do for money, and he promotes a new silky shampoo that turns hair to wire and a deodorant that becomes a time-released stench-bomb. He inserts subliminally suggestive and perverse images into well-loved classic films, takes a howitzer on safari, and brings a panther to a kennel club dog show. His most elaborate adventure is an ultra-exclusive cruise aboard the S.S. Magic Christian, where elite passengers are treated to a series of madcap indignities. The Magic Christian is a hilarious and savagely satiric view of American commercialism, rich in Southern’s deft handling of detail, dialogue, and delightful deviancy. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Terry Southern including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

Ratings and reviews

As someone who isn't familiar with Terry Southern's writing, 'The Magic Christian' comes across as a very odd and satirical collection of stories about the mis-adventures of an eccentric ultra-wealthy Guy (which is also his name). Just about every chapter starts off with Guy having a conversation with some female relatives (Aunts, etc.) which will set up a reason for someone to tell a story about Guy's ridiculous business ideas, how he acquired it, set it on a obvious path to fail spectacularly, and whether he had to pay a lot of money to clear up his mess. It never seems to reveal if he's doing these things as a prank (though considering what he does I'd lean towards this idea) or if he's just completely ignorant as to what he's doing. But whatever he's doing doesn't seem to bring him joy and his incredible failures don't slow him down from moving on to the next bad idea with reckless confidence. Overall it's a fine (and short) book to read.

Terry Southern is a genius at painting a picture with words. This should be a classic

About the author

DIV

Terry Southern (1924–1995) was an American author and screenwriter. His satirical novels—including the bestselling cult classics Candy (1958) and The Magic Christian (1959)—established Southern as one of the leading literary voices of the sixties. He was also nominated for Academy Awards for his screenplays of Dr. Strangelove (written with Stanley Kubrick and Peter George) and Easy Rider (written with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper). His other books include Flash and Filigree (1958), Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes (1967), Blue Movie (1970), and Texas Summer (1991). In later years, he wrote for Saturday Night Live and lectured on screenwriting at New York University and Columbia University.

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