All We Need of Hell

The perfect book for beginners. If you've never read a Harry Crews novel before, read this first. At under 200 pgs. it is a quick read but no less taut, brutal, incisive and humorous as his earlier works. At 1st morose and tragic then oddly funny until at the last almost spiritually uplifting. I love this book. If you do as well, take the plunge into hardcore Crews and try A Feast of Snakes. After that, you will be hooked.

I read All We Need of Hell about 10 years ago. Borrowed the copy from my local library. I rarely re-read novels at all. I not only re-read it, but I checked it out again and read it a second time, immediately after the first time. Then, I tracked down a used trade-paperback in good condition and paid a significant sum of money for it. Read THAT copy. Shelved it and took it down and did a FOURTH reading. This has the most interesting mix of characters and a protagonist who lives for order and discipline, finds his life spinning out of control anyway. It's a great read which--and I hope this doesn't insult Harry--cries out to be filmed.

Having just reread All We Need of Hell, I am struck by what I think Harry Crews accomplishes better than any other contemporary - he creates real bodies. His characters are built on a particular fleshy foundation and in his prose, more than that of any other author, one senses the tension in the muscles, the rhythm of the heart, how it feels to pick something up and carry it, what physical 'balance' actually feels like and how deeply somatic are the emotional states routinely experienced by human beings. No matter how they try, most writers come at the physical self from the outside, through descriptions of what a body looks like or with descriptive abstractions of what one 'feels'. Crews starts with the fact of the body. What is it like when it is angry - what are its characteristics? His description and dialogue seem to be built out from this basis.That being said, All We Need of Hell is one helluva physical book. Not only is he main character (like Crews himself) a lifelong amatuer athelete with a self destructive bent, but much of the action is purely physical and centers around running, handball, sex, fighting and some clearly 'slapstick' physical humour.This is a rich and satisfying book. Short and bittersweet, it is perhaps more 'fun' than many of Crews's books. At least everyone doesn't die or get mutilated (much) as is typical of his earlier work. I found on rereading it, just as I had on my initial reading more than a decade ago, that the book is strangely optimistic and envigorating.

Of all the books and stories Harry Crews has written (and I've read) this is my absolute favourite. The tight and extremely economical prose contrasts beautifully with the weird world of Duffy Deeter and the outrageous, twisted events that make up this story. For ten years I've been waiting for Crews to outdo himself and although he hasn't really disappointed, he has never been as good as in this book. Granted, "Body" came in as a close second place favourite for all the same reasons I liked this one. But enough chitchat, go ahead and read "All we need of hell" yourselves if you can find it...