Getting Naked With Harry Crews: Interviews

Rating:
Summary: Watching Harry spin
Review: I think that even someone who has not read any of Harry Crews could be fascinated by this collection of interviews. Crews, a self proclaimed redneck from rural Georgia, has over a thiry five year career published some of the finest fiction to come of out the south. But unlike the more typical genteel southern writers (Faulkner, Ransom, Tate, Lytle, Foote, Percy or Price for example)whose books, even when they deal with poverty and hard times, tend to a 'literary' language and an oblique view of the subject matter, Crews, in contrast, is confrontational, colloquial, profane, angry, violent, shocking, grotesque and really, really funny. His is a unique voice and perhaps an acquired taste, but no question that it is the real stuff.

This book of interviews captures the writer (typically having just finished a project) at various stages in his publishing career from 1972 to 1997. To read all of these in one setting, as I did yesterday, is a bit much, because over the years some of the same questions (and answers) recur reqularly, so that it begins to seem a lot like a candidate's standard stump speech. One does see Crews presenting the same stock answers to questions about his use of 'freaks' in his stories, his favorite authors, the impact of drinking (and drugs) on his writing, and his specific writing habits. Still, each interview has at least one moment of unique insight and many are delightfully entertaining. Moments of pure Harry such as informing a female interviewer that despite being on the wagon his sexual powers have not deminished or, in another interview after speaking at length about being sober for a year, he downs several carafes of white wine because he doesn't really think it counts.

Those who have read and enjoyed Crews should really get a lot of pleasure from the perspective that these interviews give us of his work. Those who haven't read him can get a real flavor for his attitute and language. What you can't get from this book is the flavor of that genius for character and story that is uniquely his

Rating:
Summary: Naked Means Honest
Review: If you've only read books BY this author, I think you'll be surprised by "Getting naked . . . " In essence, this title means Crews is baring his soul, being more honest than most of us would have the courage to be. He admits to all his human frailties, continues to indulge them, but is not defeated by them. In this collection of interviews of Crews by many different journalists, the "naked" Crews comes through as a kind, caring, sensitive, warm human being, impeccably honest with and about himself and others. His obvious love of and knowledge of literature is also impressive. I fell in love with the "naked" Harry Crews.