A satirical dream-logic journey through the dark heart of 1950s Los Angeles
Dr. Frederick Eichner, world-renowned dermatologist, is visited by the entrancingly irritating Felix Treevly who comes to him as a patient and stays as an obsession. Prosaic incidents blossom into bizarre developments with the sharpened reality of dreams as the spectral Mr. Treevly leads the doctor into a series of increasingly weird situations. With the assistance of a drunken private detective, a mad judge, a car crash, a game show called “What’s My Disease,†and a hashish party, Treevly drives Eichner to madness and mayhem. It is through comedy and a strange blend of violence and poetic delicacy that the novel charms.Â
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Southern’s first novel, Flash and Filigree was turned down by seventeen timorous American publishers. It was Southern’s mentor, the “genius†English novelist Henry Green, who brought the book to the attention of a leading British publishing house, which released it to high praise. A fast-paced dark comedy, Flash and Filigree established Terry Southern as one of the finest American prose stylists to emerge in Paris after the War.
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This ebook features an illustrated biography of Terry Southern including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.