His memoir A Childhood: The Biography of a Place was first published in 1978 and is now reissued (along with The Gospel Singer) with a loving foreword by Tobias Wolff. Having published eight novels in as many years, beginning with The Gospel Singer in 1968, in his 40s Crews turned to nonfiction to recount his first six years alive and testify to “a way of life gone forever out of the world”. Born in Georgia in 1935, Crews died in 2012 and claimed to have sold only a few thousand books in hardback during his lifetime (a series of celebrity admirers including Sean Penn and Madonna failed to translate into mainstream popularity). At leas, that’s what’s happened to Harry Crews, the author of many southern gothic novels populated by freaks and grotesques, including his most well-known novel, A Feast of Snakes. I f a cult writer’s aura endures long enough, their work might be elevated to Penguin Classics status.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |