Perspectives on Harry Crews

by Erik Bledsoe

Overview

Critics have called Harry Crews a "mad genius" and "Flannery O'Connor on steroids." His novels chronicle the southern world on the edge of insanity. His characters set out to eat an entire car on national television, attend rattlesnake round-ups, and become obsessed with training hawks when their suburban lives collapse. Crews has created a bizarre literary landscape, and this book is a critical collection devoted to helping readers traverse it. Much of the previous critical work on Crews has focused on a rather narrow range of topics, primarily the grotesque elements. Here is an exploration of new avenues as well as revisits in Crew's unique literary terrains. Essays examine his redneck masculinity, the political implications in his writing, and his curious absence from the cutting edge of the present-day critical theory despite the richness of his novels in subjects generally of interests to these critical theorists. Other essays examine his literary naturalism, the impact on his work of the particular area of southern Georgia from which he hails, and the nature of his relationship with the British novelist Graham Greene, whom Crews long has claimed as one of the writers who influenced him most.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604736519
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	02/19/2001
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Harry Crews

Mentor and Friend

Larry Brown

I've been reading Harry Crews for so long that I can't really rememberwhen I first discovered his work. It was probably way back in somedim year close to the time when I started writing, and that was in 1980.I remember that my friend and cousin, Paul Hipp, came over one afternoonwhen my wife and my children and I were living in the house withmy mother-in-law. He had in his hand a paperback copy of a bookcalled A Feast of Snakes, and he loaned it to me. I can remember sitting onthe front porch in the swing, reading it. My children were small then,Billy Ray only three or four, Shane just a baby, LeAnne not even bornyet. I remember how that book moved me, shook me, riveted me.

    I'd never read anything like it and didn't know that such things couldbe done in a book. I didn't know that a man could invent characters likeJoe Lon Mackey, or his warped sister, Beeder, or Buddy Matlow, thesadistic yet lovestruck peg-legged sheriff. It was an unearthly combinationof hilarity and stark reality and beauty and sadness, and I couldonly shake my head over the power of the imagination that created it.Since then I've read it many times, and like all great books, it only gets better witheach successive reading.

    I'd already seen some of his essays in places like Playboy and Esquire, and somewherealong in there I went to Richard Howorth's fledgling bookstore in Oxfordand bought a book of essays called Florida Frenzy. From the library in town I checkedout a book called Blood and Grits, and another one calledA Childhood: The Biography of aPlace. I was awed by the writing in these books, by the stories of his life, his childhood,his struggles to become a writer, the places he had been and the things he haddone, but mostly, the things that he felt.

    His novels were harder to find. The public library had a couple of them, TheGypsy's Curse and The Hawk Is Dying. I read both of them and loved them tremendously,but I couldn't find any more of his fiction. I knew it was out there somewhere,but nobody seemed to know where.

    I don't know how long a period of time this reading covered, but I must havebeen trying to write by then. I was in the process of trying to find mentors, writerswhose work I could look up to and gain inspiration from. I wanted to read the restof those books, novels that were listed in the front pages of his other books, novelswith names like Karate Is a Thing of the Spirit, Car, Naked in Garden Hills, This Thing Don'tLead to Heaven, The Gospel Singer. I went in search of a larger library, and found it outat Ole Miss. I learned all over again how to use the card catalog, and then, armedwith a piece of paper I had scribbled numbers and letters on, I began to prowl thesemi-dark aisles of the stacks. And I began to find the books. Most of them werethere, minus their dust jackets, and I checked them out and took them home andread them.

    Car was reissued in paperback and I bought it, and when The Gospel Singer wasfinally released again in 1988, I bought it. As the newer books have come out, thingslike The Knockout Artist and All We Need of Hell and Body and Scar Lover and TheMulching of America, I've bought them. I've read or bought everything by him that I've beenable to get my hands on, and I'm grateful that a writer like him walks this earth.

    By 1985 I had written five unpublished novels and almost one hundred shortstories that had, for the most part, gone begging also. There was a reason for that:most of it was no good. I'd sold one story to Easyriders, one to Fiction International, andone to a now-defunct magazine in New York called Twilight Zone. I had learned bythen that the price of success for a writer came high, that there were years of a thingcalled the apprenticeship period, and that nobody could tell you when you'd cometo the end of it.

    You just had to keep writing with blind faith, and hope, and trust in yourselfthat you would eventually find your way, that the world would one day accept yourwork. Whenever I fell into a black period of depression, which was fairly often, Icould get one of Harry's books of essays and read again about what he had gonethrough, how he had worked for years with no success. It was comforting somehowto know that a man of his great talent had not been born to it, but had learned it,and had possessed the perseverance or the stubbornness or the internal character orwhatever it was that he possessed that allowed him to keep on writing in the face ofrejection. I read about how much he had lost: his wife, and one of his little boys.He never once complained about how tough it had been. He never said how hard itwas to put the right words down. What he said was that you had to keep your assin the chair. Even if he couldn't write anything one day, if the words wouldn't comeat that particular sitting, he would make himself sit in the chair for three hoursanyway.

    I knew that back in those early days when he was unpublished, he must havewanted success as badly as I did then. And I was tremendously heartened to readthese things. It meant that I was not the only writer who had ever gone throughwhat I was enduring, that it was probably a universal experience, this apprenticeshipperiod, this time of years when you wrote things that were not good only to throwthem away or have them rejected in order to write enough to eventually learn how.

    I learned to use the trash can. I burned one of my novels in the backyard. Icollected my rejection slips and kept them in a worn manila envelope. I kept writing,and hoping, and trying to do better. I pulled a twenty-four hour shift at the firedepartment in Oxford ten days a month, and on the other days I drove nails orsacked groceries or cleaned carpets, whatever it took to make a few extra dollars tofeed my growing family, heat the house, pay the endless bills that everybody has. Onthe weekends or for a few hours at night I would go into the kitchen and try towrite something that made some sense. I was still writing stories, and I had startedanother novel.

    That year I wrote a story about a man and a woman sitting in their bedroomand watching an old movie, The Lost Weekend starring Ray Milland. It was a turningpoint for me, that story. All the things I had written and thrown away over the yearshad been leading up to the writing of that story, one that was called "Facing TheMusic." By then I had found some additional mentors, a few other role models.They were William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, CormacMcCarthy, and Charles Bukowski. Along with Harry Crews they were the writers Iadmired most, and still do.

    Two years later I finally sold the story, and I was offered a book contract for tenstories, and I sent them, and they were accepted and my apprenticeship period wasover after seven years. Harry's had been ten, and it wasn't lost on me. When mypublisher asked me to suggest some writers they might send galleys to for blurbs, Inamed my Mississippi friends Barry Hannah, Ellen Douglas, Jack Butler, and WillieMorris. And I asked them to send a galley to Harry Crews.

    Some time passed, the galleys went out, and the blurbs began to come in. Myeditor sent them to me as they came, and we were glad to have them. All my friendssaid nice things about the book, and I walked around for a long time with my headin the clouds. And then one day my editor mailed a postcard to me, a postcard thathad come to her from Harry Crews, and he had responded kindly and favorably aswell. I was grateful to my friends, and grateful to him. But I never thought of tryingto write to him and thank him. I figured he was a busy man, and I didn't want tobother him. I held him in such high esteem, and respected him and his work somuch, that I thought it would be best to just be grateful from a distance, and trynot to intrude on his life.

    Harry kept writing and so did I. I kept buying his books as they came out, andI published my first novel, and kept writing stories, and in 1990 Algonquin publishedanother collection. It was in October of that year when I read a review of thebook that Harry Crews had written in the Los Angeles Times. The review was verygood, even better than I could have hoped for, but what surprised me the most waswhat he said about the first book, that in twenty-five years of writing it was the firsttime he'd picked up the phone and tried to call the author.

    He hadn't been able to get ahold of me, but I decided then that I would writehim, and thank him for the things he'd done for me, and try to tell him how muchI'd admired his work through the years and how much it had meant to me in mystruggles to become a writer. I got his address from my editor and wrote the letterand sent it, along with my phone number, and then sometime later on a Saturdayafternoon when I was sitting out in my room working, the phone rang, and it washim. I was so glad to hear from him. I think we talked for about an hour and a half,and then we began to write back and forth. We talked about writing, about ourlives, about dogs, about drinking, about women, about everything. Once in a whileI would call him up and he would do the same. Eventually he arranged a reading forme at the University of Florida, and offered to let me stay with him for a couple ofdays, and I quickly accepted.

    When I walked off the plane at Gainesville, he was leaning up against a wall,wearing a pair of jeans and running shoes and a black Oakland Raiders sweatshirtwith the sleeves hacked off. The sides of his head were shaved. There was a silverskull with ruby eyes in one ear, and on one shoulder he wore the tattoo of a death'shead, and underneath it the legend:

How do you like your
blue-eyed
boy now, Mr. Death?

    We got into his black pickup and we started talking and didn't stop for severaldays. He drove me over to his house and I unloaded my suitcase and he put me intothe spare bedroom he had. He'd called earlier to ask me what kind of beer andwhiskey I liked, and he had laid in a supply of both for me. We sat and talked inthe living room for a while, and out in the backyard where his deck overlooked awild piece of land, a creek, tall trees. His living room was sunken from the rest ofhis house and I met his old dog Heidi, and then he took me to a good seafood placefor something to eat. I gave the reading that night and don't even remember what Iread, but the place was packed and he introduced me. It was one of the high pointsof my life. Later that night we sat in the living room and read to each other piecesfrom the books we were working on. The next day I went to his class with him, andthat night he gave a party at his house. He treated me like a favorite uncle would,and told me that if there was anything I needed and didn't see it, to just ask for it.The time with him passed by too soon, but just to get to hang out with him for awhile was a great gift that I've never forgotten, never will forget.

    We've continued to stay in touch over the years, and I know that he's still working,that he hasn't finished his writing, since that is the thing that makes him mostalive. I understand that because it's the same way for me.

    It's important to have people to look up to at the beginning of your career. Youhave to find people who have found their own way of saying the things that youyourself want to say. It never comes easy, and I believe now, while I'm engaged inwriting my tenth novel, that it may even get harder the older you get and the moreyou write. The apprentice approaches the pinnacle slowly, with much stumbling andcursing, constantly going down one-way streets and taking off on tangents that gonowhere. The incredible amount of things that have to be written and then thrownaway is probably what discourages a lot of young writers. I don't think Harry everthought of quitting. I know I certainly did, but something kept me going. To a largedegree it was Harry Crews and his work. Knowing about those hard early years mademe see that it was possible to succeed at what I was trying to do, and it pulled theblinders off my eyes about what was required. In the beginning I was very naive. Inthe beginning I thought I'd write a novel and mail it off to New York City, andthey'd mail me a check back for a million dollars, and it took a couple of years forme to find out that it doesn't work that way. A fluke does happen once in a while,but the person who sets out to write literature has already fixed himself up with ahard row to hoe. By its very nature, literature is the hardest thing to write, becausethe standards are so high, and there's sometimes little market for it, and the majorityof the world does not read it. It's probably nearly impossible to make a living solelyfrom it, unless you get lucky. Most of the literary writers I know teach somewhere,and write their books in between classes and working on students' stories. Harry didthat for a long time, and I've done a good bit of it myself, even though I'm uneducatedin the formal sense and barely got out of high school.

    I heard a while back that he had finally retired, but I haven't talked with him ina spell. The last time I saw him was a few years ago, when he came over to Oxfordto read at Square Books from his latest work. My friend Mark and I watched himget off the plane at Memphis, and were waiting on him when he got to the top ofthe stairs. He grabbed me in a bear hug and gave me a smile, and shook hands withMark and told him how much he'd enjoyed his book, and then we drove him downto Oxford in Mark's old Caddy. I got pretty drunk on him that night, and felt badabout it afterwards and apologized to him for it, but he told me later in a letter toforget about it, that it went with the turf. I knew he meant it, and I stopped worryingabout it. But I was glad to get to spend some more time with him again.

    Once when I was in Washington, DC, rehearsing a stage adaptation from one ofmy novels, we had a bad day. Actually a terrible day. Nothing went right and thelines I'd written with my director were wrong and everybody kept missing their cuesand forgetting their lines and it got so bad that the director, Rick Corley, finallythrew up his hands and sent everybody home. Opening night was not far away, onlya few days, and I went down a dark snowy street to a liquor store and got a fifth ofWild Turkey and went back to my hotel room and tried to crawl inside it. Sometimelater, after I'd gotten good and drunk, I dug Harry's number out of my briefcaseand tried to call him, but his answering machine was on and all I could do was leavea message. I wanted to tell him how badly things were going, and ask him what itwas that I needed to do. He didn't call back that night, but he did call the nextmorning, full of good humor and reassurance. He told me of rehearsing his ownplay in Louisville, and of how terribly things sometimes went, but how it all cametogether before opening night, and he let me know that the same thing would happenfor us. And he was right. Rick and I fixed the lines, and the actors pulled things upout of themselves that we had never seen coming, and on opening night the play fittogether like the corners of a finely mitered box. He knew what he was talkingabout.

    If not for having written a few books I would not know Harry Crews, or be ableto count him as a friend. In a business that involves staying by yourself most of thetime, and working uncertainly and usually fearfully toward an uncertain goal, therewards can be few and far between and the very nature of the thing you are doingcan cause a man to question, and often, the sanity of it. But other writers understandwhat you do and what is required of you to do it. And nothing matters but thefinished book. It doesn't matter how much pain it costs you. You can't bitch orwhine about it, you just have to do it. I think that's probably the most valuablelesson I've learned from Harry: do the best work you can, whatever it takes to do it,whatever the price is that you have to pay.

    And when it goes right, when you know that what you've done is good, then youknow what your existence on earth is all about, and why you keep doing what youdo.

    I wish that everybody in America would read some of his work. I wish everybodyin America would find out what a great writer we have living down in Gainesville,Florida. Even if Paul hadn't brought that first book over that day, I still would havediscovered him.

    I would have heard his name mentioned somewhere, because I hear it mentionedeverywhere I go. It doesn't matter if it's Seattle or St. Paul, people know about HarryCrews and his work. I think that's a pretty fine tribute, for his name to be scatteredso far and so wide. It is only just and fitting. He is one of the greatest treasures thatwe have.

    Thanks, Harry, for all you've given us.

---

Excerpted from Perspectives on Harry Crews by . Copyright © 2001 by University Press of Mississippi. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

---

Table of Contents

	Introduction	ix
	Harry Crews: Mentor and Friend	3
	"Is Your Novel Worth a Damn?": Meeting Harry Crews	11
	"The Use of I, Lovely and Terrifying Word": Autobiographical Authority and the Representation of "Redneck" Masculinity in A Childhood	15
	Travels in Greeneland: Graham Greene's Influence on Harry Crews	29
	Silences, Criticisms, and Laments: The Political Implications of Harry Crews's Work	47
	"Everthing is Eating Everthing Else": the Naturalistic Impulse in Harry Crews's a Feast of Snakes	63
	Having a Hard Time of it: Women in the Novels of Harry Crews	79
	Harry Crews's Home Place: an Excursion into Wiregrass Country and the Carnivalesque	95
	The Grit Emigre in: Harry Crews's Fiction	105
	Harry Crews's Away Games: Home and Sport in a Feast of Snakes and Body	117
	The Performative Body in Harry Crews's: Karate is a Thing of the Spirit	133
	An Interview with Harry Crews	147
	Assault of Memory	175
	Keeping Up with Harry Crews: a Bibliography of Works, Interviews, and Critical Texts	197
	Notes	211
	Works Cited	221
	Contributors	229
	Index	231