Candy, Darling
The Smutty, Lusty Adventure Novel Returns
It wasn’t the first book ever banned in France and England but the controversial 1958 best-seller, Candy, certainly tested the taste and morals of readers abroad with it’s overtly sexualized story. Based on Volaire‘s bawdy, picaresque novel, Candide, which coincidentally was banned here in the states in the 1930s, this version is about young Candy, a dumb-as-a-fox, luscious lady who leaves the easy, cheesy life she had in Wisconsin for the harsher but much more fun streets of New York City.
Written under the pseudonym Maxwell Kenton, it actually took two talents to create this lusty romp of a book: Mason Hoffenberg and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and satirist Terry Southern, who gave us the thrilling, iconoclastic scripts for films Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider, and Barbarella, among others.
Naturally, with all of that movie cred behind it, the book was adapted into film in 1968. Written by the great Buck Henry and starring huge stars like Richard Burton, Marlon Brando, James Coburn, Ringo Starr, Walter Matthau, and director John Huston, the movie was a hit, however it was deemed truly unwatchable by most critics. Even the trailer, below, is pretty bad.
Named one of the sexiest books ever written, by Playboy magazine no less, publisher Grove Atlantic just rereleased the raunchy novel in honor of its 60th Anniversary. They also listed ten little-known facts about the book below.
10 Facts about Candy
1.) Banned in France in 1958, a best-selling sensation in America in 1964-1965.
2.) The most pirated best-selling novel of the 20th century.
3.) Banned in stores and libraries across America, defended by scores of librarians who resisted its censorship.
4.) Its primary author Terry Southern appears on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
5.) Illegally distributed in France under the title Lollipop (to fool authorities).
6.) Written under the pen name Maxwell Kenton to protect the American authors in France from deportation.
7.) The original U.S. publisher decreed that if a pirated edition appeared, the authors would be paid nothing.
8.) Though the book made millions, the authors were paid about $200 each.
9.) Targeted by the FBI as pornography, it was redeemed as “satire” by an FBI analyst reporting to J. Edgar Hoover.
10.) One of the most successful titles originally published by Maurice Girodias—whose other successes include Lolita, Tropic of Cancer, and Naked Lunch.
