My first venture into the strange world of Harry Crews. Never read anything like it. It was like getting snake bit, and surviving. I read this around 20 years ago, yet I still carry some of its images around with me. Thanks to my buddy, Woods, for giving me this book, and introducing me to one of my favorite authors. ( )

Believe debt of gratitude owed by a few to this godfather of hillbilly noir ( )

Brutal. Nobody captures the simmering rage of an unfulfilled life quite like Harry Crews. ( )

“White people were dangerous and snakes were dangerous and now the two were working together, each doing what the other told it to. “

“I don’t like snakes,” she said.
“You’re in a hell of a place if you don’t like snakes.”

“He did not know what love was. And he did not know what good it was. But he knew he carried with him, a scabrous spot of rot, of contagion, for which there was no cure. Rage would not cure it. Indulgence made it worse, flamed it, made it grow like cancer. “

Welcome to Mystic Georgia, circa 1970. Now, turn back and run like hell. This is a mean, gritty tale, bordering on the grotesque and certainly not for the faint of heart. It takes place around an annual Rattlesnake Round up, populated with mostly unlikable characters. It ain't pretty. It also includes a horrific dog-fight, so be forewarned. This was my introduction to Crews. I like dark, literary explorations and this delivered it, in spades. I found much of it fascinating. I am not sure, I will run out right away and find more of his work but I am glad I finally read it. McCullers may have set the "hillbilly noir" table but Crews has sure found a comfortable spot, at the head of it. ( )

Written in 1976, A Feast of Snakes is a whiskey fueled frustration of violence, of the knowledge and acceptance that things won't be different tomorrow. Harry Crews is fast becoming my new literary hero. The language is fantastic, the characters are incredible, the plot is over the top. Crews writes so much beauty into so much ugliness and brutality. And his ear for dialect blows me away.

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