ISBN: 0671806882
Godina izdanja: 1976
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

Harry Crews - The Gypsy`s Curse
Pocket Books, 1976
190 str.
meki povez
stanje: vrlo dobro

A novel about a deformed, deaf mute circus performer who specializes in feats of hand-balancing. A bizarre, moving and, as usual, lucidly written novel from a writer who redefined Southern.

It`s not anybody who could write a bawdy, often hilarious, totally unsentimental novel about a legless deaf-mute who earns his keep by doing one-finger stands on arms the size of your average giant`s thighs. Marvin Molar lives in a gym with Al — a former stunt man who did tricks like having a car run over his body — an old punch-drunk Negro fighter named Peter and an equally punchy young one named Leroy — and finally, Hester, a `normal` whose revolving thighs drive Marvin absolutely insane. She is the `gypsy`s curse` `Find a cunt that fits you and you`ll never be the same`) — especially when she abandons Marvin for an occasional fling with her former lover Aristotle — the kind of dumb Greek spic Marvin particularly dislikes. But he stands it, at least for awhile, both because Hester gives him nightly bliss and because she charms everything but the pants off his other gym pals — all the while subtly but purposefully sowing seeds of disaster that will result in the splitting apart not only of their semi-family but of her pretty little head. The novel is narrated by Marvin, who can reel off tough-sounding detective patter with the best of them — and then some. Bizarre
Kirkus Review

Harry Eugene Crews was born during the Great Depression to sharecroppers in Bacon County, Georgia. His father died when he was an infant and his mother quickly remarried. His mother later moved her sons to Jacksonville, Florida. Crews is twice divorced and is the father of two sons. His eldest son drowned in 1964.

Crews served in the Korean War and, following the war, enrolled at the University of Florida under the G.I. Bill. After two years of school, Crews set out on an extended road trip. He returned to the University of Florida in 1958. Later, after graduating from the master`s program, Crews was denied entrance to the graduate program for Creative Writing. He moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where he taught English at Broward Community College. In 1968, Crews` first novel, The Gospel Singer, was published. Crews returned to the University of Florida as an English faculty member.

In spring of 1997, Crews retired from UF to devote himself fully to writing. Crews published continuously since his first novel, on average of one novel per year. He died in 2012, at the age of 78.

Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth), Lydia Lunch, and Sadie Mae named their band Harry Crews after him. They released one album, Naked in Garden Hills, in 1989.


Fiction, American Fiction, 20th Century, Southern Gothic