Classic Crews: A Harry Crews Reader - Softcover

"My compulsive need to look for the edge and live on it has marked me in more ways than I would want to know or try to explain. Never mind the marks it has left on my skin, let me go straight to the bone," Crews writes in the introduction to this collection. And, in each of the works, he is more than willing to open a few wounds. The book includes two of his full-length novels, The Gypsy's Curse and Car; his autobiography, A Childhood: The Biography of a Place; and three of his essays, "Fathers, Sons, Blood," "The Car," and "Climbing the Tower." Each piece is remarkable on its own, and the book takes special advantage of the illumination afforded by grouping the essays with the fiction in particular ways. For example, "The Car," an essay about Crews' youthful fixation with automobiles, precedes Car, a novel about a young man born to an auto-wrecker who takes such an obsession to a different realm. That character achieves fame and notoriety in Sarasota, Florida, by announcing his intention to eat a Ford Maverick in public view at a downtown hotel. The book promises to provide new insights to confirmed fans, as well as a valuable introduction for the uninitiated. Martha Schoolman