In 1995, shortly before his death, Southern hired a new agent and began making arrangements for the republication of "Candy" and "The Magic Christian" by Grove. His final project was the text for a 1996 coffee table book about Virgin Records. He appeared at the Yale Summer Writing Program mid-year. Franz Douskey, a creative writer at Yale, told a reporter from the Yale Daily that Southern was giving a non-lecture, trying to gasp through calcified lungs. In October, he made his last media appearance when he was interviewed for a documentary on cult Scottish novelist Alexander Trocchi.