Brutes and brutality lead to murder and mayhem, 30 Jul 2008
"The annual rattlesnake round-up in Mystic, Georgia bears no relation to 'Whacking Day' in The Simpsons at all! As the thousands turn-up to take part and watch, by the day of the actual hunt, you know it'll have all gone horribly wrong. Throw a handful of good 'ol boys and their women, moonshine and whisky, fighting dogs, diamondbacks and the return of the prodigal cheer-leader queen into the mix and you have a heady brew that will burst from its bottle in a flash. At the centre of this is Joe Lon Mackey, a former footballer who didn't get the grades to go to further, stuck in a trailer with his fading wife, two babies, and with nothing to do except mind his father's liquor store, misses his former girl Berenice the cheerleader, and finds himself taking it out on everyone ...

It's tragedy in the making, and the writing is brutal, visceral, yet not without a wicked sense of humour in the caricature of the characters. No words are wasted in this cinematic novel of murder and mayhem, and the tension builds and builds until it finally explodes in an stunning ending that will shake you to the core."


Epic Southern Gothic, 02 Dec 2007
Of the several Harry Crews books I've read so far, 'A Feast of Snakes' is my favourite. It conjures up a view of the South that is both very real & yet unreal. He captures the feel of the south superbly, the prose is lyrical and makes you feel that you are there, experiencing the action like you can really smell it. While the Northern States may have been rich in culture it was in the South that Story-telling became a way of life and an integral part of life; Harry Crews is a master story teller.

[top notch], 30 May 2007
If you're looking for a satisfying book set in the Deep South, this delivers on many levels: drinking, fighting, weird rituals, cars, trailer parks, violence all feature - but the narrative is so gripping that it would be just as satisfying if it were about tea parties in Edwardian England.

Crews is able to construct such realistic characters and events that you are quickly immersed in the world. What is more impressive is that he is also able to create genuine and believably 'bad' characters, who are mean and unpleasant, and then make you sympathise with them. He doesn't achieve this by trying to twist your emotions, but by making them full, breathing people with personalities and histories that you are aware of but that are only hinted at in the writing.

That Harry Crews can do all of this in under 200 pages is awe-inspiring. His style is tough and quick, but sensitive and wise - and he sounds like a friend telling you stories in a bar. The only thing I cannot understand is that Crews is not a household name, or at least on a level with Hunter S Thompson or William Faulkner. If you have read Nick Cave's 'And The Ass Saw The Angel', then you may well enjoy this (and vice versa).

White trash runs wild, 15 May 1999
I read this book several years ago, and it still stays with me. This story of white trash living in the south, living off of old glory, whiskey, and rage is really something good. It's a horrific account of lives that are worth nothing, and those same lives act accordingly, and in the most nasty ways. Not for the weak, but a good read!

One of my ultimate favorites, 26 Mar 1999
This novel is one which will stick with you forever. The imagery which Harry Crews uses will both repulse and stun you at the same time. He manages to fit an epic in less than 200 pages. Believe me....I was an English major and have read them all, but no novel has had as much a lasting affect on me as this book did. I must warn those weak of heart that the images in this novel are sometimes quite hard to take. You have been warned!

Brutes and brutality lead to murder and mayhem, 30 Jul 2008
"The annual rattlesnake round-up in Mystic, Georgia bears no relation to 'Whacking Day' in The Simpsons at all! As the thousands turn-up to take part and watch, by the day of the actual hunt, you know it'll have all gone horribly wrong. Throw a handful of good 'ol boys and their women, moonshine and whisky, fighting dogs, diamondbacks and the return of the prodigal cheer-leader queen into the mix and you have a heady brew that will burst from its bottle in a flash. At the centre of this is Joe Lon Mackey, a former footballer who didn't get the grades to go to further, stuck in a trailer with his fading wife, two babies, and with nothing to do except mind his father's liquor store, misses his former girl Berenice the cheerleader, and finds himself taking it out on everyone ...

It's tragedy in the making, and the writing is brutal, visceral, yet not without a wicked sense of humour in the caricature of the characters. No words are wasted in this cinematic novel of murder and mayhem, and the tension builds and builds until it finally explodes in an stunning ending that will shake you to the core."


Epic Southern Gothic, 02 Dec 2007
Of the several Harry Crews books I've read so far, 'A Feast of Snakes' is my favourite. It conjures up a view of the South that is both very real & yet unreal. He captures the feel of the south superbly, the prose is lyrical and makes you feel that you are there, experiencing the action like you can really smell it. While the Northern States may have been rich in culture it was in the South that Story-telling became a way of life and an integral part of life; Harry Crews is a master story teller.

[top notch], 30 May 2007
If you're looking for a satisfying book set in the Deep South, this delivers on many levels: drinking, fighting, weird rituals, cars, trailer parks, violence all feature - but the narrative is so gripping that it would be just as satisfying if it were about tea parties in Edwardian England.

Crews is able to construct such realistic characters and events that you are quickly immersed in the world. What is more impressive is that he is also able to create genuine and believably 'bad' characters, who are mean and unpleasant, and then make you sympathise with them. He doesn't achieve this by trying to twist your emotions, but by making them full, breathing people with personalities and histories that you are aware of but that are only hinted at in the writing.

That Harry Crews can do all of this in under 200 pages is awe-inspiring. His style is tough and quick, but sensitive and wise - and he sounds like a friend telling you stories in a bar. The only thing I cannot understand is that Crews is not a household name, or at least on a level with Hunter S Thompson or William Faulkner. If you have read Nick Cave's 'And The Ass Saw The Angel', then you may well enjoy this (and vice versa).

White trash runs wild, 15 May 1999
I read this book several years ago, and it still stays with me. This story of white trash living in the south, living off of old glory, whiskey, and rage is really something good. It's a horrific account of lives that are worth nothing, and those same lives act accordingly, and in the most nasty ways. Not for the weak, but a good read!

One of my ultimate favorites, 26 Mar 1999
This novel is one which will stick with you forever. The imagery which Harry Crews uses will both repulse and stun you at the same time. He manages to fit an epic in less than 200 pages. Believe me....I was an English major and have read them all, but no novel has had as much a lasting affect on me as this book did. I must warn those weak of heart that the images in this novel are sometimes quite hard to take. You have been warned!

Great., 08 Jun 1996
Any other Crews-admirers on-line? peter@cybersight.com

Brutes and brutality lead to murder and mayhem, 30 Jul 2008
"The annual rattlesnake round-up in Mystic, Georgia bears no relation to 'Whacking Day' in The Simpsons at all! As the thousands turn-up to take part and watch, by the day of the actual hunt, you know it'll have all gone horribly wrong. Throw a handful of good 'ol boys and their women, moonshine and whisky, fighting dogs, diamondbacks and the return of the prodigal cheer-leader queen into the mix and you have a heady brew that will burst from its bottle in a flash. At the centre of this is Joe Lon Mackey, a former footballer who didn't get the grades to go to further, stuck in a trailer with his fading wife, two babies, and with nothing to do except mind his father's liquor store, misses his former girl Berenice the cheerleader, and finds himself taking it out on everyone ...

It's tragedy in the making, and the writing is brutal, visceral, yet not without a wicked sense of humour in the caricature of the characters. No words are wasted in this cinematic novel of murder and mayhem, and the tension builds and builds until it finally explodes in an stunning ending that will shake you to the core."


Epic Southern Gothic, 02 Dec 2007
Of the several Harry Crews books I've read so far, 'A Feast of Snakes' is my favourite. It conjures up a view of the South that is both very real & yet unreal. He captures the feel of the south superbly, the prose is lyrical and makes you feel that you are there, experiencing the action like you can really smell it. While the Northern States may have been rich in culture it was in the South that Story-telling became a way of life and an integral part of life; Harry Crews is a master story teller.

[top notch], 30 May 2007
If you're looking for a satisfying book set in the Deep South, this delivers on many levels: drinking, fighting, weird rituals, cars, trailer parks, violence all feature - but the narrative is so gripping that it would be just as satisfying if it were about tea parties in Edwardian England.

Crews is able to construct such realistic characters and events that you are quickly immersed in the world. What is more impressive is that he is also able to create genuine and believably 'bad' characters, who are mean and unpleasant, and then make you sympathise with them. He doesn't achieve this by trying to twist your emotions, but by making them full, breathing people with personalities and histories that you are aware of but that are only hinted at in the writing.

That Harry Crews can do all of this in under 200 pages is awe-inspiring. His style is tough and quick, but sensitive and wise - and he sounds like a friend telling you stories in a bar. The only thing I cannot understand is that Crews is not a household name, or at least on a level with Hunter S Thompson or William Faulkner. If you have read Nick Cave's 'And The Ass Saw The Angel', then you may well enjoy this (and vice versa).

White trash runs wild, 15 May 1999
I read this book several years ago, and it still stays with me. This story of white trash living in the south, living off of old glory, whiskey, and rage is really something good. It's a horrific account of lives that are worth nothing, and those same lives act accordingly, and in the most nasty ways. Not for the weak, but a good read!

One of my ultimate favorites, 26 Mar 1999
This novel is one which will stick with you forever. The imagery which Harry Crews uses will both repulse and stun you at the same time. He manages to fit an epic in less than 200 pages. Believe me....I was an English major and have read them all, but no novel has had as much a lasting affect on me as this book did. I must warn those weak of heart that the images in this novel are sometimes quite hard to take. You have been warned!

Great., 08 Jun 1996
Any other Crews-admirers on-line? peter@cybersight.com

more twisted stuff from harry, 27 Nov 1998
While not the best Crews book i have read, and not the book i would recommend to a first time Crews reader, this still is a winner. You can just tell that Crews is feeling his age getting to him, which makes this seem more heart-felt. Yes, it is slightly more ridiculous than usual, but it is more of the same pained bizarre cruelty that stabs at the heart of human nature. So far, Crews is the person who has been able to capture that better than anyone else.

Not for the faint of heart, 27 Sep 1998
As someone else noted, this probably isn't the best introduction to Crews' work for the uninitiated and the faint of heart. But for hardcore Crews readers and others who can look the human beast in the face without flinching, this is some of his best work, and indeed some of the best work being done in contemporary fiction.

If you need the status quo definition of Justice and Beauty to get to sleep at night, don't read this book. But if you can't turn away from the dark spectacle of the raw human heart, this is for you.

This is my first and last time to read this author's work., 24 Jun 1998
I was so disappointed in the story because I expected more humor and less cruelty. If Stump is the symbol of the younger, materialistic generation and "The Old Ones" of our aging population, I shudder to think what Crews is predicting for the future. With a catalyst such as Too Much, whose intelligence I found hardly believable from her own background, we won't have to worry about society's demise by the atomic bomb because we'll surely destroy ourselves morally. Although I think Crews made some accurate social commentary, I don't think he had to use so much sexual imagery to do it. Personally, I had to discipline myself to push through some of the "bathtub scenes" with Stump and with the "mop" just to complete the book. By the time I got to the conclusion, I really only read it because I had already invested so much time and energy in it. Maybe my expectations were just erroneous; after all, this was the first of his works that I've read.

Not one of his best, but a page-turner., 04 Feb 1998
I just finished Harry Crews's _Celebration_. It's a Crews Cruise (TM) freak show, complete with stump-humpin', granny-drownin', Turkey suckin' good ole bad ole boys and girls, which incidentally answers the zen koan "What should you do if you meet the Buddha on the road and she offers to have outrageous sex with you?"

An unbelievably lame tale from my favorite author. Bummer., 05 Jan 1998
I've savored and passed around every Crews novel in print, but I had to force myself to finish this one. If you've never read a Harry Crews novel, don't start with Celebration. Skip it and pick up Scar Lover, Feast of Snakes or Knockout Artist and see the strange genius of Crews at its finest. His brilliance is in the way he touches deeply into the lives of disturbed outcasts and makes you laugh out loud and fall in love with all of them.

Celebration has the cast of outrageous characters that I love about Crews's novels, but here they just seem ridiculous and silly with none of Crews's previous characters' charm and wit.

The jacket art, depicting the gorgeous 18 year old Too Much, is the best thing about this book. Too bad Crews can't convince us that such a creature exists, even in Forever and Forever, a Florida trailer park for eccentrics at the end of their miserable lives.

Too Much shares a trailer and a giant bath tub with Stump, the elderly owner of the park whose missing hand and resulting nub is the main reason she's with him. "Had it been possible, she would have taken him inside her all the way to the shoulder." If you think the names of these characters are hard to swallow, you have an idea of how much disbelief you will have to suspend to get this one down. It's as if Crews had his students write this one as a class project.

Brutes and brutality lead to murder and mayhem, 30 Jul 2008
"The annual rattlesnake round-up in Mystic, Georgia bears no relation to 'Whacking Day' in The Simpsons at all! As the thousands turn-up to take part and watch, by the day of the actual hunt, you know it'll have all gone horribly wrong. Throw a handful of good 'ol boys and their women, moonshine and whisky, fighting dogs, diamondbacks and the return of the prodigal cheer-leader queen into the mix and you have a heady brew that will burst from its bottle in a flash. At the centre of this is Joe Lon Mackey, a former footballer who didn't get the grades to go to further, stuck in a trailer with his fading wife, two babies, and with nothing to do except mind his father's liquor store, misses his former girl Berenice the cheerleader, and finds himself taking it out on everyone ...

It's tragedy in the making, and the writing is brutal, visceral, yet not without a wicked sense of humour in the caricature of the characters. No words are wasted in this cinematic novel of murder and mayhem, and the tension builds and builds until it finally explodes in an stunning ending that will shake you to the core."


Epic Southern Gothic, 02 Dec 2007
Of the several Harry Crews books I've read so far, 'A Feast of Snakes' is my favourite. It conjures up a view of the South that is both very real & yet unreal. He captures the feel of the south superbly, the prose is lyrical and makes you feel that you are there, experiencing the action like you can really smell it. While the Northern States may have been rich in culture it was in the South that Story-telling became a way of life and an integral part of life; Harry Crews is a master story teller.

[top notch], 30 May 2007
If you're looking for a satisfying book set in the Deep South, this delivers on many levels: drinking, fighting, weird rituals, cars, trailer parks, violence all feature - but the narrative is so gripping that it would be just as satisfying if it were about tea parties in Edwardian England.

Crews is able to construct such realistic characters and events that you are quickly immersed in the world. What is more impressive is that he is also able to create genuine and believably 'bad' characters, who are mean and unpleasant, and then make you sympathise with them. He doesn't achieve this by trying to twist your emotions, but by making them full, breathing people with personalities and histories that you are aware of but that are only hinted at in the writing.

That Harry Crews can do all of this in under 200 pages is awe-inspiring. His style is tough and quick, but sensitive and wise - and he sounds like a friend telling you stories in a bar. The only thing I cannot understand is that Crews is not a household name, or at least on a level with Hunter S Thompson or William Faulkner. If you have read Nick Cave's 'And The Ass Saw The Angel', then you may well enjoy this (and vice versa).

White trash runs wild, 15 May 1999
I read this book several years ago, and it still stays with me. This story of white trash living in the south, living off of old glory, whiskey, and rage is really something good. It's a horrific account of lives that are worth nothing, and those same lives act accordingly, and in the most nasty ways. Not for the weak, but a good read!

One of my ultimate favorites, 26 Mar 1999
This novel is one which will stick with you forever. The imagery which Harry Crews uses will both repulse and stun you at the same time. He manages to fit an epic in less than 200 pages. Believe me....I was an English major and have read them all, but no novel has had as much a lasting affect on me as this book did. I must warn those weak of heart that the images in this novel are sometimes quite hard to take. You have been warned!

Great., 08 Jun 1996
Any other Crews-admirers on-line? peter@cybersight.com

more twisted stuff from harry, 27 Nov 1998
While not the best Crews book i have read, and not the book i would recommend to a first time Crews reader, this still is a winner. You can just tell that Crews is feeling his age getting to him, which makes this seem more heart-felt. Yes, it is slightly more ridiculous than usual, but it is more of the same pained bizarre cruelty that stabs at the heart of human nature. So far, Crews is the person who has been able to capture that better than anyone else.

Not for the faint of heart, 27 Sep 1998
As someone else noted, this probably isn't the best introduction to Crews' work for the uninitiated and the faint of heart. But for hardcore Crews readers and others who can look the human beast in the face without flinching, this is some of his best work, and indeed some of the best work being done in contemporary fiction.

If you need the status quo definition of Justice and Beauty to get to sleep at night, don't read this book. But if you can't turn away from the dark spectacle of the raw human heart, this is for you.

This is my first and last time to read this author's work., 24 Jun 1998
I was so disappointed in the story because I expected more humor and less cruelty. If Stump is the symbol of the younger, materialistic generation and "The Old Ones" of our aging population, I shudder to think what Crews is predicting for the future. With a catalyst such as Too Much, whose intelligence I found hardly believable from her own background, we won't have to worry about society's demise by the atomic bomb because we'll surely destroy ourselves morally. Although I think Crews made some accurate social commentary, I don't think he had to use so much sexual imagery to do it. Personally, I had to discipline myself to push through some of the "bathtub scenes" with Stump and with the "mop" just to complete the book. By the time I got to the conclusion, I really only read it because I had already invested so much time and energy in it. Maybe my expectations were just erroneous; after all, this was the first of his works that I've read.

Not one of his best, but a page-turner., 04 Feb 1998
I just finished Harry Crews's _Celebration_. It's a Crews Cruise (TM) freak show, complete with stump-humpin', granny-drownin', Turkey suckin' good ole bad ole boys and girls, which incidentally answers the zen koan "What should you do if you meet the Buddha on the road and she offers to have outrageous sex with you?"

An unbelievably lame tale from my favorite author. Bummer., 05 Jan 1998
I've savored and passed around every Crews novel in print, but I had to force myself to finish this one. If you've never read a Harry Crews novel, don't start with Celebration. Skip it and pick up Scar Lover, Feast of Snakes or Knockout Artist and see the strange genius of Crews at its finest. His brilliance is in the way he touches deeply into the lives of disturbed outcasts and makes you laugh out loud and fall in love with all of them.

Celebration has the cast of outrageous characters that I love about Crews's novels, but here they just seem ridiculous and silly with none of Crews's previous characters' charm and wit.

The jacket art, depicting the gorgeous 18 year old Too Much, is the best thing about this book. Too bad Crews can't convince us that such a creature exists, even in Forever and Forever, a Florida trailer park for eccentrics at the end of their miserable lives.

Too Much shares a trailer and a giant bath tub with Stump, the elderly owner of the park whose missing hand and resulting nub is the main reason she's with him. "Had it been possible, she would have taken him inside her all the way to the shoulder." If you think the names of these characters are hard to swallow, you have an idea of how much disbelief you will have to suspend to get this one down. It's as if Crews had his students write this one as a class project.

Great concept sunk by thin characters & ludicrous plot twis, 04 Aug 1999
I'm a relatively new convert to Crews, but this was the worst of the four books I've read to date. He sets up a great concept to skewer the zeal of salesmen and corporate America, and the first third of the book does grab you, but it soon dissolves into wanderlust. Characters you would have liked to seen fully sketched out and explained are merely pencilled in, and the ending is one of the weakest and unsatisfactory of ANY novel I've read recently. I like it when Crews leaves something to the imagination, but here it just seems like laziness. Mulch this book and pick up "Celebration" or "The Knock-Out Artist" instead.

Compost this book, 16 Dec 1998
Hey, I LIKE Crews but this book stinks, and its a pity because it starts out good, but it runs into a tough patch and just keeps getting deeper and deeper in it. Every writer has his flaws, and often they are intimately related to his strengths; but played improperly as it were. That's sort of what happens here. Crews starts to work his magic, creating cracker archetypes from a few glimpses, a phrase, a cliche, and a heavy dose of alchemy; but the thing falls apart. The characters never form, they have nothing to do, nowhere to go and too much time to get there, which turns out to be the worst of this calamity because as a consequence they have entirely too much too say about nothing to each other while they wander about committing felony non sequitur for 200 or so pages. I've never seen Crews stumble like this, but this book reads like a novel one reads in spurts over a couple of months: you keep having trouble tying it together and wonder if you've forgotten something. Well, if nothing else it serves to illuminate just how magical Crews other work is, because this reads like a half assed attempt to emulate him. Kind of makes one wonder, after all Jerzy Kosinski...nah..never mind. Oh well, he's recovered now with Celebration, and presumably the new book,so no great loss, but don't waste your time or money on this one unless you are so into Crews that you want to see what happens when he flounders

An insane, inspired look at corporate America, 16 Sep 1998
I had the wrong impression of this book. I thought it was one of those character portraits, eccentric and revealing, at least of the poor sclub which it details. Wow, was I wrong. I was right that it was eccentric, but it was so in a completely different fashion from what I'd imagined. 'The Mulching Of America' is an absurdist fantasy in all senses of the word but, at heart it really is quite a clever commentary. I recommend this book for it's inventiveness, if not for it's ridiculousness.

Unfocused, but mildly amusing., 07 Nov 1997
"It does not lather, nor does it clean." So goes the unfilled promise both of Harry Crews' novel and the product its "Soaps For Life" employees hock from door to door. From its slapslick moments, to its hairpin plot turns and half-realised themes Crews never manages to fully explore his territory, never makes his characters likeable or hateable enough for the reader to buy into their predicaments. Unfortunately, we are left with a shoddy soft-sell. Mr. Crews never gets us to sit down at our kitchen table and buy into his prose. He shys away at the door and tumbles off down the block.