A Feast of Snakes

Only Harry Crews could write a novel filled with unlikable charcters who have no redeeming qualities and make it work. That Crews is an outstanding writer should be a given to those familiar with his work. That his writing is often angry and depressing should come as no surprise. But I never would have thought he had a book like "A Feast Of Snakes" in him. This is the written equivalent of a shotgun blast to the belly. "A Feast Of Snakes" is more than an angry book; it boils over with rage. Joe Lon Mackey isn't just a Southern redneck stereotype, he is the embodiment of the frustration and desperation of America's rural poor. "Deliverance" reads like a fairy tale in comparison to this novel. The tone of "A Feast Of Snakes" is vile and hateful. It feels like Crews' most personal work, perhaps written at a time when Crews was going through a living hell of his own. Like Joe Lon Mackey, Crews comes from a poor, rural area of Georgia. Unlike Joe Lon, Crews' skills afforded him the opportunity to break away from the endless cycle of violence, ignorance, hatred and self destruction that is Joe Lon's life. But Crews hasn't forgotten. As detestable as Joe Lon is, it is obvious that Crews has a certain respect for - or at least feels a kinship with - the character. You will likely feel unsettled after reading this novel. You may feel angry. You will certainly feel something and you will feel it intensely. This book grabs you by the throat and bangs your head against the wall for seemingly no reason. But maybe there is a reason. Maybe someone finally realized that in order to properly convey the impotent fury of the Joe Lon's of the world, the story must be written with cold, hard, unflinching honesty. Love it or hate it, you simply can't deny the truth that Crews has the guts to tell with a defiant pride.

You will never encounter another literary character on the scale of Joe Lon Mackey. He is sick, depraved, perverted, cruel, and highly entertaining. He probably also exists in many forms in Modern America more than we would like to think about. This novel has exactly zero literary merit, but nonetheless deserves its five stars for the sheer lecherousness of it. You can read it in a few hours and be none the worse for wear because of it.

This was the first novel by Harry Crews that I ever read. It may as well have been heroin because to this day I will read anything and everything he publishes. Crews writes almost tenderly about brutal, ugly people in a wasteland of frustrated desires. He grabs you by the back of the neck and holds your head down close enough to see the gorgeous, swirling iridescence of a fly's wing as it feasts on rotted meat. He propels you through the most chilling land of horrors you will ever see and yet, somehow leaves you feeling uplifted. Crews will baptize you in a lake of raw sewage laughing gleefully all the while as you struggle to understand why you feel redeemed.

After reading this book I have decided that Harry Crews is the best author whom i have had the pleasure of reading from. Before I read this book I had only read a piece of harry crews Autobiography. Immedietly after reading Feast of Snakes I went out and bought Mulching of America, another Crews novel. This book was extremely twisted and weird but very entertaining. Quite honestly i felt like I was breaking some kind of rule just reading this book while I was at school. As odd as it was you couldn't help but laugh out loud at the sick actions of the protaganist. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys strange charachters doing strange things.

Of all Harry Crew's books, this remains my favorite. On the difficult tightwire that Crews has chosen to walk, this book strikes the perfect balance between the horror and the comedy of life in a universe that doesn't give a damn about the individual's hopes and dreams. At times both laugh out loud funny and saddly horrible, this tale of modern day marginal southern characters is the perfect example of the peculiar universe of Crew's fiction.Harry Crews has established himself as a kind of southern gothic Hemingway whose bruised, bloody and always, in some ways, crippled protagonists seem more foolish than heroic. Yet these 'freaks' are human and their stories move us. There is a great humanity in Crews books, but always beneath the surface. A Feast of Snakes is one of those books on the very short stack I keep on hand to reread with pleasure from time to time. If you enjoy black comedy - if the exremes of the human condition strike you as much comic as tragic - then this book might be for you. I love it.