I read my first Harry Crews book, CAR, somewhere around 1974. It's a very strange novel about a guy who decides to eat a car - a Ford Maverick, to be exact - from bumper to bumper. Yeah, GROtesque stuff, no question. But I enjoyed it so much, that I went back and read his previous books, and continued to read his work for several years after. So I think THE KNOCKOUT ARTIST is prob around the 7th or 8th Crews book I've consumed. I mean READ, because I didn't actually EAT the books like the CAR guy ate the Maverick. I mean, well …

So here's the first Crews book I've read in probably over twenty years, and I did enjoy it. Set in Jacksonville, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, another scarred, damaged, fragile character is presented here in ex-boxer Eugene Biggs, whose fight career ended when he discovered he had a glass jaw. Shortly after that, he made the discovery that he could knock himself out by punching himself in the jaw. Apparently people want to see that, and will even pay for it, and so Eugene "Knockout" Biggs entered the world of "kink." He also met another damaged soul in rich Texan socialite, Charity, who takes on Eugene as a "research project," or so she says.

There are sex, S&M, drugs, violence, and lotsa "kink" in THE KNOCKOUT ARTIST, which is of course true of most of Crews' work. I was not quite as entranced by it this time around, but probably that's just me, forty-odd years later. Crews' fiction is often characterized as Southern noir or Gothic, and sometimes as "grotesque." I'm reminded somewhat of the weird grotesques in Flannery O'Connor's work whenever I read Harry Crews, and I just researched him a bit, and found out that he and O'Connor (and James Dickey too) had the same creative writing teacher at the University of Florida, one Andrew Nelson Lytle. An interesting connection, no?

Harry Crews died several years back, and this book came from somewhere mid-career for him, in 1988. If you are a Harry Crews fan, this one will not disappoint. I found the ending a bit abrupt and inconclusive, but, if I remember correctly, even that may be typical Crews. A good read. RIP, Harry, and thanks for all the entertaining hours I spent with you and your unique creations.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

Story of a prize fighter with a glass chin, who is forced to move to New Orleans and perform for rich people. He knocks himself out. Literally. ( )