Flash and Filigree

Terry Southern was an acclaimed satirist of American culture, the writer who dreamed-up Candy and coauthored the screenplays for Dr. Strangelove and Easy Rider. In Flash and Filigree, lauded as a dazzling performance by Henry Green, Southern delivers an outrageously funny commentary on the darker side of suburban L.A. Frederick Eichner, a world-renowned dermatologist, is visited by the entrancingly irritating Mr. Felix Treevly, who comes to him as a patient and stays as an obsession. Mr. Treevly leads the doctor into a series of increasingly chaotic situations full of hilariously weird characters: a drive-in theater seduction, a hashish party, a car crash, a drunken private detective, and the infamous What’s My Disease? quiz-show. This whirlwind of a novel is an enigmatic work of comic genius from the man B. J. Novak calls the coolest figure of twentieth century literature.