Synopsis
Cultural luminaries as varied as John Waters, Amiri Baraka, John Sayles, and Erica Jong join for the common cause of celebrating the career and influence of Barney Rosset. As the publisher of Grove Press and Evergreen Review, Rosset battled for the ending of censorship and brought many fascinating voices to the public ear. But the excitement didn't stop with his professional life; friends and family watched in horror as Rosset's experiences took him right to the edge. OBSCENE features music from Bob Dylan, the Doors, Patti Smith, and more.



Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor's "Obscene" is as vital, incisive and entertaining as its subject, Barney Rosset, who in his 80s is as witty and impassioned as ever in his defense of the freedom of expression. The founder of Grove Press and the Evergreen Review, those bugaboos of the censorious in the '60s and '70s, once said, "I feel personally there hasn't been a word written or uttered that shouldn't be published." Rosset has spent his life -- and lost a fortune -- in living up to that belief.

Rosset has published thousands of books, including those of five Nobel Prize winners, but he became notorious for publishing "Lady Chatterley's Lover," "Naked Lunch" and "Tropic of Cancer," all of which involved costly but ultimately successful court battles against charges of obscenity. He then distributed the sexually explicit 1967 Swedish film "I Am Curious -- Yellow," which made a fortune, but this time he lost his battle at the U.S. Supreme Court level. Working against him was that Justice William O. Douglas had to recuse himself, for he had contributed an article to an issue of the Evergreen Review, an act that so shocked President Ford that he called for the impeachment of Douglas. A series of calamitous events concluded with Rosset eventually selling Grove under the false impression that he would still be in charge. Yet Rosset is a survivor, admired and bemused by friends and the famous and distinguished writers he has published.—Kenneth Turan, L.A. Times, October 3, 2008