Harry Crews (1935–2012)

“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. show more “

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. show less

So. This was one of the best books I read this year...and I'm having trouble figuring out what to say about it. I'll start start with the one word I am sure about.

Bacchanalian - (adj.) of or relating to the orgiastic rites associated with Bacchus

The story starts an indeterminate time after a young woman known only as Too Much has settled into the senior trailer park Forever and Ever. Or, more specifically, she has settled into the bed of it's owner Stump. It's really a toss up as to which of show more the two is meant to be the protagonist and which the antagonist as is it soon becomes apparent that while neither can be pinned down as "good" or "bad" it is certain that if they share territory for any significant time one will destroy the other.

Too Much, called so because she is "too fucking much", is chasing something she calls "the chance of ultimate possibility". From the moment she set eyes on Forever and Ever she set too work to bring such possibility to the community. She is effervescent and energetic with the residents and soon gains the affection and friendship of much of the park. In fact, her acceptance by the old residents is probably best illustrated in their eventual acceptance and adoption of her crude and unapologetic habit of scratching her crotch whenever she feels like it, "because it feels good".

Stump on the other hand wants nothing more than to live out his days in the sort of peace afforded by living in the midst of a bunch of strangers shuffling off this mortal coil. He is a veteran of the Korean War, though the stump he gets his name from was the result of a farm accident that led to the financial windfall that allowed him to buy Forever and Ever and go on living comfortably with his Wild Turkey, without really paying attention to if his tenants were paying their rent.

When Too Much proclaims her plans to throw a May Day celebration for the residents of Forever and Ever life at the park takes a turn Stump doesn't like, but is completely unprepared to oppose. With the whole park mobilized with Too Much, either enthralled by her charms or cowed by her vicious coercive talents, Stump finds himself the villain of his own trailer park. For to oppose Too Much and her followers is to be and enemy of joy and celebration. And there isn't much Too Much and her crew of electrified oldsters won't do to make sure the party goes on.

At the most basic level I would contend that Too Much and her crew is emblematic of life. It's furies, joys, fits, violence and passion. There is love and hate in epic proportions all intermingled. She is life cranked up to eleven. Stump on the other hand is emblematic of death. His body survived the war, but it's obvious his interest in living did not. He is a man with no energy of his own. While Too Much revels in the life's "chance of ultimate possibility" to Stump life is just the time that creeps by until his body joins his soul in the ground.

I absolutely loved this book, but it is explicit in ways that make me reluctant to recommend it to friends and family. There is some pretty kinky stuff going down at Forever and Ever and I just don't know who in my circle is up for a book that includes the fetishization of an amputated arm, loose dentures and the sort of violence whose brutality is only matched by its weirdness.

Ah, Harry Crews. You were one of a kind. show less

In Masters of Atlantis, one character tells another, "I wouldn't have that book in my house. I wouldn't have that book in my truck." That's my reaction to A Feast of Snakes. There's not a redeeming thing about this and I'd be embarrassed to recommend it on moral or aesthetic grounds. (And yes, I read every word.) I can already imagine the fan base invoking the alibi of art to justify the depravities detailed in its pages.

Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller must have been as drunk as the show more characters when they agreed to write blurbs for the dust jacket. show less

Harry Crews always does a number on me, and especially so with this autobiographical account of his childhood. I grew up in the South when it still resembled the South of Crews' time. The folks and places he describes with his unique, vivid style are my people and my home. Somehow Southerners seem to love harder and deeper, and Crews captures this so well in this book, it often made me read sections over again, moving me to tears, sometimes from happiness, sometimes from pain. This is a show more magnificent piece of art. show less