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A Feast of Snakes
From the acclaimed author of such novels as "Blood and Grits" and "Childhood" comes a wildly weird and breathtakingly original visit to the rural South that reveals the exotic subculture that erupts in all its glory at the Rattlesnake Roundup in Mystic, Georgia. "No number of adjectives in the thesaurus can do full justice to the dazzlingly bizarre nature of Crews' creations".--"Washington Post Book World".
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
About the author
Harry Crews
47 books571 followersHarry 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.
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.
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May 22, 2021
In A Feast of Snakes Harry Crews pushes the dark style of
Erskine Caldwell
to the ultimate limit.
All the principal characters of the novel seem to be of the type to whom ignorance is bliss… And the main hero’s existence seems to be reduced to the purely physiological level…
The great event is imminent – it’s the time or the yearly roundup of the rattlesnake hunting… And so many freaks gathered to hunt snakes… And there are so many of those who arrived just to watch and get elated… They are freaks too but of the other kind…
And all physiological ways are so similar: a rat for snake, booze for man, copulation for both and an instinct to kill anything that moves – that’s life.
All the principal characters of the novel seem to be of the type to whom ignorance is bliss… And the main hero’s existence seems to be reduced to the purely physiological level…
He was stronger and faster and meaner than other boys his age and for that he had been rewarded. He had even suspected that he was smarter, too. For whatever reason, though, the idea of studying, of sitting down and deliberately committing facts and relationships to memory was deeply repugnant to him. And always had been. Unless it had to do with violence. He liked violence. He liked blood and bruises, even when they were his own.
The great event is imminent – it’s the time or the yearly roundup of the rattlesnake hunting… And so many freaks gathered to hunt snakes… And there are so many of those who arrived just to watch and get elated… They are freaks too but of the other kind…
It wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning and the actual hunt was still nearly forty-eight hours away, but there were already at least a thousand people camped in and around Mystic. They had come in an unrelenting, noisy stream starting long before daylight. Some of them ended up in tents, some bedded down in the backs of pickups, some sat in the open doors of vans, and a great many were in campers of one kind or another…
Probably less than half of the people who had arrived were hunters. The rest were tourists of one kind or another, retirees stunned with boredom, people genuinely curious about snakes but who had never seen a live one outside a cage, young dopers who wondered about saying gentle, inscrutable things to one another about God, Karma, and Hermann Hesse.
And all physiological ways are so similar: a rat for snake, booze for man, copulation for both and an instinct to kill anything that moves – that’s life.
June 22, 2019
Not bad, I guess for a "hillbilly noir," po' white trash turning berserk and homicidal in the Deep South. But somehow I expected more. I mean, the premise is fantastic . . .
Every year in the little town of Mystic, Georgia (high school football team "the Rattlers"), there is a "Rattler Day," which features the crowning of a high school girl as "Miss Rattler," followed by her ritual torching of a huge snake effigy, followed in turn by a pit bull battle. Then, the next day, the real fun: hundreds of snakes are released into the woods and the snake hunt begins . . .
Many of the incidents are shocking, vicious and memorable, but--in spite of its spare style and mere 175 pages--it meanders (like a snake?) until it reaches its violent, inadequately motivated end.
I should have re-read a Jim Thompson novel instead.
December 13, 2015
A Feast of Snakes: Harry Crews' Surreal Novel of Sex, Snakes, and the Winding Way to the Future
A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews was chosen by members of On the Southern Literary Trail as the Pre-1980 Group Read for December, 2015. Special thanks to Trail Member Leanne for nominating this work.
“That was the only decision there was once upon a time: what to do with the night.”
Harry Crews (June 7, 1935-March 28, 2012)
I was introduced to the works of Harry Crews through the anthology Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader, edited by Tom Franklin and Brian Carpenter. Included was the first chapter of A Feast of Snakes. I was hooked. (For my review of Grit Lit, see http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... , a continuing project)
Want to take a trip to the Rough South? Let Harry Crews take you down to Mystic, Georgia, for the annual Rattlesnake Roundup, a dark mixture of booze, sex, football, and violence, in his eighth novel, A Feast of Snakes.
First Edition, Atheneum, New York, 1976
Mystic, Georgia, is basically a dot on the map these days, located in Irwin County, with a population of 229.
At twenty-one Joe Lon Mackey is a has been. The former Boss Snake of the town's high school Rattlers, a mean football machine, could have played anywhere he wanted except for one thing. He wasn't a good student. Though a star on the grid, and over the hood of head cheerleader Berenice Sweet's Corvette, Joe Lon scored on a regular basis, Joe Lon wasn't accepted to any college.
Berenice has moved on to the University of Georgia. Her younger sister Hard Candy is head majorette at the high school and goes with the new Boss Snake Willard Miller. Though three years younger, Willard is Joe Lon's best buddy. It's Joe Lon's link to his glory days.
Joe Lon's real life makes him want to howl. He has married Elfie who started out pretty enough, but after he's put two babies in her belly one after the other, Elfie has lost that girlish appeal. Their two boys constantly wail, and Joe Lon had rather be anywhere other than their double wide. Elfie is the target of Joe Lon's constant emotional abuse and, at times, physical.
Big Joe Lon was the town bootlegger. Little Joe Lon has been allowed to take over the business. He spends his days selling shine and unlabeled bonded whiskey. The big money comes once a year when the Rattlesnake Roundup rolls around.
Joe Lon bought ten acres of land, turning it into a trailer and campsite. The Roundup started out small, but through the years, the word has gotten around. Thousands of snake loving hunters and snake curious tourists descend on Mystic and Joe Lon's camp ground.
A typical snake pit at a rattlesnake roundup
The Roundup is a macabre gathering of grotesques and freaks, not that the citizens of Mystic are much less so than their visitors. Old Joe Lon trains fighting pit bulls. The training is cruel. His daughter Beeder has sealed herself off in her room, abandoning the real world for a television set.
Sheriff Buddy Matlow, a veteran of the Vietnam War, has a peg leg and a sense of entitlement. If a woman doesn't put out, he locks her up on a trumped up charge until she does. Joe Lon's bootlegging operation is off limits. The sheriff drinks for free at the gas station that covers the liquor business. But his predatory sexual practices will exact rough justice when he chooses the wrong woman to mess with and pushes her over the limits of sanity.
As the hunters and tourists gather for the roundup, Joe Lon sees his chance for a return to the glory days when Berenice comes home from the University of Georgia. The one problem is she's brought a new boyfriend, Adam Shepherd, who is on the debate team. But one glance at her former Boss Snake is all it takes when Joe Lon orders her to assume a four point stance.
Got it? Berenice understood perfectly.
Crews writes rough as a cob. He's out to shock and he does it. Crews' detractors have accused him of relying on broadly drawn southern stereotypes. But he hasn't. Characterization is Crews' strong point. Throw in perfect pitch dialog and you have a fierce and angry Southern Gothic novel.
In structuring "A Feast of Snakes" Crews divided the novel into two parts. In the first, Crews has Joe Lon Mackey seeking a nostalgic return to the days of his past fame. In the second, Joe Lon deals with the reality of his present life and contemplates what the future holds.
Flannery O'Connor wrote:
Crews follows O'Connor's formula to perfection. The conclusion to "A Feast of Snakes" shocks, shouts, and paints a canvas of hellish violence reminiscent of Hieronymous Bosch. Joe Lon is a monster. However, he is a monster that Crews so artfully portrays, the reader is mesmerized, and perhaps a bit empathetic.
The Earthly Delights aren't all they're cracked up to be.
A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews was chosen by members of On the Southern Literary Trail as the Pre-1980 Group Read for December, 2015. Special thanks to Trail Member Leanne for nominating this work.
“That was the only decision there was once upon a time: what to do with the night.”
Harry Crews (June 7, 1935-March 28, 2012)
I was introduced to the works of Harry Crews through the anthology Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader, edited by Tom Franklin and Brian Carpenter. Included was the first chapter of A Feast of Snakes. I was hooked. (For my review of Grit Lit, see http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... , a continuing project)
Want to take a trip to the Rough South? Let Harry Crews take you down to Mystic, Georgia, for the annual Rattlesnake Roundup, a dark mixture of booze, sex, football, and violence, in his eighth novel, A Feast of Snakes.
First Edition, Atheneum, New York, 1976
Mystic, Georgia, is basically a dot on the map these days, located in Irwin County, with a population of 229.
At twenty-one Joe Lon Mackey is a has been. The former Boss Snake of the town's high school Rattlers, a mean football machine, could have played anywhere he wanted except for one thing. He wasn't a good student. Though a star on the grid, and over the hood of head cheerleader Berenice Sweet's Corvette, Joe Lon scored on a regular basis, Joe Lon wasn't accepted to any college.
"That's the way they all put it in Mystic: Joe Lon Mackey is not a good student. But it was worse than that and they all knew it. It had never been established exactly if Joe Lon could read. Most of the teachers at Mystic High who had been privileged to have him in their classrooms thought he probably couldn't. But they liked him anyway, even loved him, loved tall, blond, high school All-American Joe Lon Mackey whose exceptional quietness off the playing field everybody chose to call courtesy."
Berenice has moved on to the University of Georgia. Her younger sister Hard Candy is head majorette at the high school and goes with the new Boss Snake Willard Miller. Though three years younger, Willard is Joe Lon's best buddy. It's Joe Lon's link to his glory days.
Joe Lon's real life makes him want to howl. He has married Elfie who started out pretty enough, but after he's put two babies in her belly one after the other, Elfie has lost that girlish appeal. Their two boys constantly wail, and Joe Lon had rather be anywhere other than their double wide. Elfie is the target of Joe Lon's constant emotional abuse and, at times, physical.
Big Joe Lon was the town bootlegger. Little Joe Lon has been allowed to take over the business. He spends his days selling shine and unlabeled bonded whiskey. The big money comes once a year when the Rattlesnake Roundup rolls around.
Joe Lon bought ten acres of land, turning it into a trailer and campsite. The Roundup started out small, but through the years, the word has gotten around. Thousands of snake loving hunters and snake curious tourists descend on Mystic and Joe Lon's camp ground.
A typical snake pit at a rattlesnake roundup
The Roundup is a macabre gathering of grotesques and freaks, not that the citizens of Mystic are much less so than their visitors. Old Joe Lon trains fighting pit bulls. The training is cruel. His daughter Beeder has sealed herself off in her room, abandoning the real world for a television set.
Sheriff Buddy Matlow, a veteran of the Vietnam War, has a peg leg and a sense of entitlement. If a woman doesn't put out, he locks her up on a trumped up charge until she does. Joe Lon's bootlegging operation is off limits. The sheriff drinks for free at the gas station that covers the liquor business. But his predatory sexual practices will exact rough justice when he chooses the wrong woman to mess with and pushes her over the limits of sanity.
As the hunters and tourists gather for the roundup, Joe Lon sees his chance for a return to the glory days when Berenice comes home from the University of Georgia. The one problem is she's brought a new boyfriend, Adam Shepherd, who is on the debate team. But one glance at her former Boss Snake is all it takes when Joe Lon orders her to assume a four point stance.
Got it? Berenice understood perfectly.
Crews writes rough as a cob. He's out to shock and he does it. Crews' detractors have accused him of relying on broadly drawn southern stereotypes. But he hasn't. Characterization is Crews' strong point. Throw in perfect pitch dialog and you have a fierce and angry Southern Gothic novel.
In structuring "A Feast of Snakes" Crews divided the novel into two parts. In the first, Crews has Joe Lon Mackey seeking a nostalgic return to the days of his past fame. In the second, Joe Lon deals with the reality of his present life and contemplates what the future holds.
Flannery O'Connor wrote:
"When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures."
Crews follows O'Connor's formula to perfection. The conclusion to "A Feast of Snakes" shocks, shouts, and paints a canvas of hellish violence reminiscent of Hieronymous Bosch. Joe Lon is a monster. However, he is a monster that Crews so artfully portrays, the reader is mesmerized, and perhaps a bit empathetic.
The Earthly Delights aren't all they're cracked up to be.
August 8, 2021
In one of his essays collected in Blood and Grits Harry Crews explains that there came a time when he was trying to write fiction that he realized, if he was going to be any good at his craft, that he had to stop pretending to be someone he wasn't and start writing about what he knew. Embrace his roots. There was plenty that Crews wished he had never experienced, but he didn't get to pick whether or not he grew up poor in Bacon County, Georgia. Because he decided to be true to his heritage, we readers get the opportunity to get a glimpse into a slice of his hell. Bare-knuckled, uneducated, violent and alcoholic hell. Going nowhere fast.
Joe Lon Mackey, the former All-American running back from Mystic, Georgia could be considered the protagonist of the story, but that would be a lie. The real protagonist of this book is Mystic itself - a backwater small town far enough away from Atlanta it may as well be Atlantis. Mystic hosts an annual Rattlesnake Roundup where people come from around the continent to fetch themselves some diamondbacks. This event plays as the backdrop to a host of local yokels, each potentially more fucked up than the next, with Joe Lon as the somewhat central star that calls their orbit. We watch Mackey's deterioration as the narrative unfolds; his withering alcoholism mirrors everyone else that has failed to escape Mystic. The town has a gravitational pull comprised of booze, easy sex and the halcyon recollection of youthful days. It circles its denizens with a pit of snakes, literally and figuratively, and the only hope one has of achieving an escape velocity is education. Crews writes in the third person omniscient about Joe Lon: He wished to God he could escape. But he didn't know where he could go or what he wanted to escape from. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son. But if you must, there's a place for you here in Mystic.
I'm not going to pretend that this was easy to read. There is adultery, rape, murder, domestic violence, specific violence, general violence, dog fighting (along with a very, very specific and violent training regimen that makes it clear that Crews was exposed to this horrific event), mayhem. There are no likable characters (out of about a dozen). I was so shocked by the ending of this book I spent the afternoon talking about it with my wife and a friend. But this is how good Crews is, and why - as a reader that seeks the real - I am so happy that he chose years ago to embrace his past. I may be a son of the south, but I never knew Crews' people: Grits. And if he didn't write about the miserable existence of poor, alcoholic, uneducated, racist, violent and seemingly execrable humans - people that didn't choose to be born in that place and time, how would he ever be able to show that it was possible to rise above that scum to do better? Crews is the Doppelgänger of Joe Lon. He proves that you can get out, that life is better. And it doesn't have to end the way that this book did.
Joe Lon Mackey, the former All-American running back from Mystic, Georgia could be considered the protagonist of the story, but that would be a lie. The real protagonist of this book is Mystic itself - a backwater small town far enough away from Atlanta it may as well be Atlantis. Mystic hosts an annual Rattlesnake Roundup where people come from around the continent to fetch themselves some diamondbacks. This event plays as the backdrop to a host of local yokels, each potentially more fucked up than the next, with Joe Lon as the somewhat central star that calls their orbit. We watch Mackey's deterioration as the narrative unfolds; his withering alcoholism mirrors everyone else that has failed to escape Mystic. The town has a gravitational pull comprised of booze, easy sex and the halcyon recollection of youthful days. It circles its denizens with a pit of snakes, literally and figuratively, and the only hope one has of achieving an escape velocity is education. Crews writes in the third person omniscient about Joe Lon: He wished to God he could escape. But he didn't know where he could go or what he wanted to escape from. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son. But if you must, there's a place for you here in Mystic.
I'm not going to pretend that this was easy to read. There is adultery, rape, murder, domestic violence, specific violence, general violence, dog fighting (along with a very, very specific and violent training regimen that makes it clear that Crews was exposed to this horrific event), mayhem. There are no likable characters (out of about a dozen). I was so shocked by the ending of this book I spent the afternoon talking about it with my wife and a friend. But this is how good Crews is, and why - as a reader that seeks the real - I am so happy that he chose years ago to embrace his past. I may be a son of the south, but I never knew Crews' people: Grits. And if he didn't write about the miserable existence of poor, alcoholic, uneducated, racist, violent and seemingly execrable humans - people that didn't choose to be born in that place and time, how would he ever be able to show that it was possible to rise above that scum to do better? Crews is the Doppelgänger of Joe Lon. He proves that you can get out, that life is better. And it doesn't have to end the way that this book did.
October 19, 2023
"Wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up first."
4.25 🌟's
Initial Thoughts
It's not often I come across an author I've never heard of. Not saying I'm the most well-read man on the planet, but I do invest a fair bit of time and research into the areas I like to do my reading in. But when my pal recommended A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews, that's exactly what happened. And what makes matters worse, this guy is not a new author. He was writing books before I was born!
I wasn't given any sort of heads up of what to expect, just that it was my cup of tea and I'd blast through it in a few days. That sounded good to me. But, as someone who plans his reading schedule, it's been a while since I've had a surprise package like this thrown in the mix.
Wish me luck!
The Story
The story takes place in the town of Mystic, Georgia, and follows the washed-up, former high school all-American football player Joe Lon Mackey. Left behind by his ex high school sweetheart he's saddled up in a trailer park with a wife he no longer has any affection for and two kids he'd rather do without. The fact that he made it through high school without being able to read means he has suffered an epic fall from grace and now makes ends meat helping out in his dad's store and selling illegal liquor on the side. His glory days are well and truly behind him and he seems to have nothing but contempt for life and those that occupy it.
But the town of Mystic is famous for its annual Rattlesnake Roundup and the next one is swiftly approaching. A whole load of tourists visit the town to catch and kill as many snakes as possible. Anyone that's reminded of "snake whacking day" in the Simpsons is thinking exactly what I was. The whole town goes snake crazy and Joe Lon is a big player in organising the event.
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So the story follows a whole load of unsavoury characters as they occupy their time with a series of deplorable activities that will have your jaw hitting the floor in disbelief. There's racist cops, illegal dog fighting, murder and all sorts going on in this one. So sit back and enjoy this darkly humorous tape of debauchery in the deep south.
The Writing
I wouldn't go so far as to say that Harry Crews' writing is beautiful, but it has an undeniable power that makes for a compulsive reading experience. There's a very natural flow with effortless description that sucked me into the narrative and held me there right to the bitter end. This author isn't trying to be clever or impress you with his word count. It's very clean and fast moving but gives a brutally honest reflection of humanity and our most base instincts. There's no taking of the moral high ground, which I found absolutely refreshing.
Let's get this straight, there's some very dark and visceral subject matter here and it will not be for every reader. This author has a wicked sense of humour and the writing can be very dark but often with a keen sense of humour that will certainly shock some readers and offend others. Crews' outlook on humanity is absolutely unflinching in its portrayal. So caveat emptor people!
There was a very visual and cinematic feel to the writing as the author perfectly captures the atmosphere of the south back in the 70's and I genuinely felt like I was there. It was all very real, yet also unreal at the same time. I'm making absolutely no sense here! But he paints a very vivid landscape and then injects an increased level of violence and downright weirdness to make this tale exceptionally entertaining.
"He liked violence. He liked blood and bruises, even when they were his own."
My only criticism would be that the story lacks a solid plot. But you know what? It doesn't really need one. It's much more about the characters and their interaction with one another. Crews' throws you into the turmoil tacking place in the town of Mystic and lets you see what life is like for its inhabitants.
The Characters
Basically, there aren't any likeable characters living in this novel, but that is absolutely intentional. There's a real sense of tragedy existing in each of them and they all possess that very human quality of not being perfect...far from it.
Yet despite being disgusted or pitying the majority of them, I found each character fascinating and enjoyed each one. Crews' has taken real care in crafting each to add layers and as you peal each back, underneath the ugliness there's a real vulnerability that adds a level of beauty to the overall composition. It reminded me of Donald Ray Pollock who is one of my favourite authors.
"And it was not any one thing that scared him. It was everything. It was his life. His life terrified him. He didn't see how he was going to get through the rest of it. He was miserable beyond measure. Everything seemed to be coming apart. He could see the frayed and ragged seams of everything slowly unraveling."
The central figure of Joe Lon Mackey is perhaps the most intriguing and dare I say my favourite? Struggling with the responsibility of being a husband and father, he constantly strives to recapture his youth. This leads down a path of debauchery and violence. There's a constant rage bubbling under the surface and anger at how life has turned out. I was being serious when I said none of these characters are likeable!
But there's a whole host of fantastic characters inhabiting A Feast of Snakes and the narrative switch's between a number of them. Each individual has a voice that is unique and clear that helps spice things up and add a real flavour. The dialogue is always razor sharp and for me was an absolute highlight. It has a very natural feel that reads so easy. Seriously, I could just read the back and forwards banter that goes on without anything else happening and still have a great time. It's that good.
Final Thoughts
I had an absolute blast with this novel. It really was my cup of tea. Which begs the question...why have I never heard of Harry Crews? There really is no excuse. This book was published in 1976 for god's sake. Seriously, if you enjoy those hardcore southern novels that authors like Joe Lansdale and Donald Ray Pollock write then you're going to love this. I for one can't wait to dig into more of his work. So if you have any recommendations leave a comment. You know I love a good recommendation.
If you want humour, violence, weirdness and tragedy then you're getting it all in spades. It all culminates in a stunning ending that caught me off guard. Ok, it's not for everyone and if you're someone who needs a "trigger warning" I'd probably give it a miss. But if you're made of stronger stuff then give Harry Crews a whirl...what's the worst that can happen?
Thanks for reading and...cheers!
June 3, 2016
This book is completely bonkers!
Harry Crews's southern Gothic tale packs in racism, rape, dog-fighting, madness, suicide, murder, wife-beating, and snakes, snakes, and more snakes. The violence in this novel is everywhere, above and below the surface, a pulse all its own. It's 1975 in rural Mystic, Georgia, and Joe Lon, an illiterate former football star feels the abyss of sadness and meaninglessness open up to engulf all his remaining days, which happens to coincide with the annual Rattlesnake Roundup, an event that brings hundreds of amped up people to town to hunt snakes.
There is no one to root for in the book--except briefly when young Lottie Mae exacts revenge on her rapist--and everyone is wretched. The whiskey never stops, and the simmering rage and disappointment of the characters made me want to put the book down only to immediately want to pick it up again.
Would I recommend it? No! Or at least not to everyone. But I gave it five stars because it's unlike anything I've ever read, and I think it will stay with me for a long time. It is utterly compelling and devastating. It stressed me out. The frenzy of moral decay is unrelenting. The language, the syntax, I found mesmerizing and it felt true. The crazy end of the book is, of course, as inevitable as it is completely over the top. (It is Gothic after all.) Dark and darker, even in the moments that were meant to be comedic. Read at your own risk.
Harry Crews's southern Gothic tale packs in racism, rape, dog-fighting, madness, suicide, murder, wife-beating, and snakes, snakes, and more snakes. The violence in this novel is everywhere, above and below the surface, a pulse all its own. It's 1975 in rural Mystic, Georgia, and Joe Lon, an illiterate former football star feels the abyss of sadness and meaninglessness open up to engulf all his remaining days, which happens to coincide with the annual Rattlesnake Roundup, an event that brings hundreds of amped up people to town to hunt snakes.
There is no one to root for in the book--except briefly when young Lottie Mae exacts revenge on her rapist--and everyone is wretched. The whiskey never stops, and the simmering rage and disappointment of the characters made me want to put the book down only to immediately want to pick it up again.
Would I recommend it? No! Or at least not to everyone. But I gave it five stars because it's unlike anything I've ever read, and I think it will stay with me for a long time. It is utterly compelling and devastating. It stressed me out. The frenzy of moral decay is unrelenting. The language, the syntax, I found mesmerizing and it felt true. The crazy end of the book is, of course, as inevitable as it is completely over the top. (It is Gothic after all.) Dark and darker, even in the moments that were meant to be comedic. Read at your own risk.
Read
December 18, 2019My brief love affair with Harry Crews has come to an end. I loved his memoir of his early life and could not wait to get my hands on one of his novels. I was not expecting A Feast of Snakes to be an easy read, but it was so far past that it's not even funny. My skin is not thin, and I have never been accused of being faint of heart, but this was completely off the scale. Gritty is a flavor that I adore, but this was too raw, nasty, and brutal for this old broad. I'm not going to finish it. Instead, I will spend that time looking for the brain bleach. I know it's here somewhere . . .
May 16, 2018
Yow! This was a fantastic, brutal, and exceedingly dark comedy. Totally blew me away. That said, most readers probably ought to avoid it unless they can distance themselves as one would with "Lord of the Flies" or "The Orphan Master's Son." If you are a fan of Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel, get a copy of Feast ASAP.
The authenticity of poor southern grammar and pronunciation is pure (Im a Louisianan - trust me), but the howling bleakness is like something out of classic Russian literature. You have no idea where the story is ultimately going, but like gawkers at a train wreck, the compulsion to know that destination pulls you along. Bizarre side characters, baton twirling, and a cultish devotion to snakes all adorn this freakish crown of grit lit.
Why will most people shy away, then? There is graphic, nasty, but consensual sex. Dog fighting. Constant guzzling of whiskey. Racism. Rape. Dis-memberment. Doglike devotion that will revolt you.
But it is amusing in a dark way! When two local studs are challenging a newcomer as he pumps iron outside his camper, they decide to beat the muscle man at his own game (page 85):
"Joe Lon and Willard slipped out of their shirts. Willard flipped over and walked around in the dirt on his hands. Joe Lon took the bottle of whiskey out of his back pocket, set it carefully on the step of the Winnebago, checking out Susan Gender's red pants again as he did. Then he went into a steady handstand and did six dips, his nose just short of the dirt each time he went down. They both came off their hands and looked at Duffy.
"I'm impressed," said Duffy, shortly. "What the hell are you, gymnasts?"
"Drunks," said Joe Lon picking up the bottle."
Loved this book for its "what the hell??" moments and Joe Lon's miserable life. I gave it 5 stars, but most of y'all will hate it. It includes the best suicide note ever composed!
The authenticity of poor southern grammar and pronunciation is pure (Im a Louisianan - trust me), but the howling bleakness is like something out of classic Russian literature. You have no idea where the story is ultimately going, but like gawkers at a train wreck, the compulsion to know that destination pulls you along. Bizarre side characters, baton twirling, and a cultish devotion to snakes all adorn this freakish crown of grit lit.
Why will most people shy away, then? There is graphic, nasty, but consensual sex. Dog fighting. Constant guzzling of whiskey. Racism. Rape. Dis-memberment. Doglike devotion that will revolt you.
But it is amusing in a dark way! When two local studs are challenging a newcomer as he pumps iron outside his camper, they decide to beat the muscle man at his own game (page 85):
"Joe Lon and Willard slipped out of their shirts. Willard flipped over and walked around in the dirt on his hands. Joe Lon took the bottle of whiskey out of his back pocket, set it carefully on the step of the Winnebago, checking out Susan Gender's red pants again as he did. Then he went into a steady handstand and did six dips, his nose just short of the dirt each time he went down. They both came off their hands and looked at Duffy.
"I'm impressed," said Duffy, shortly. "What the hell are you, gymnasts?"
"Drunks," said Joe Lon picking up the bottle."
Loved this book for its "what the hell??" moments and Joe Lon's miserable life. I gave it 5 stars, but most of y'all will hate it. It includes the best suicide note ever composed!
April 30, 2012
There should be a lawyer from Atlanta putting together a class action suit against Harry Crews on behalf of everyone who lives in rural Georgia. He's just so astonishingly insulting about them. In this mad novel not a page goes by without whiskey or beer or shine being drunk usually by the driver of a motor vehicle which is not stationary. Every ten pages someone you'd sell your left kidney to not have to meet does something unspeakable to a yet more hideous other. I guess if this book has a theme - apart that is from the one-eyed trouser snake theme, the one familiar to us from the Garden of Eden, it's an examination of male rage and male agony. Hard to imagine a more full-tilt macho society than the one depicted here, and hard to imagine more loathsome disgusting men. They rape, they beat women, they breed pit bulls, they kick animals to death, they hardly ever floss, but are they happy? Well, you'da thought so, but it seems the answer is no, they ain't. Harry should concentrate on exploring what happens to these guys when they don't immolate themselves - could be an interesting novel in there - or possibly he just thinks there really is no escaping the impasse of untrammelled machismo. Well, that may be so. Isn't every massacre/suicide from Killeen and San Ysidro to Hungerford and Virginia Tech a living, dying demonstration of this?
This is the 2nd Crews novel I've read and in each one he organises a crazy frenzied crowd-goes-raving-mad scene at the end, like a southern gothic version of a gang of peasants burning down Frankenstein's castle. Kind of like throwing us all a big party.
So Harry Crews, yeah, he's another novelist I'd walk on the other side of the road to avoid.
Finally : One thing Harry does really well, like Pete Dexter, is write dialogue.
"Say, we done good" said Lummy. "Howsomever, it don be whatall I come to axe you bout."
Or here's a girl giving advice to her friend who's terrified of snakes:
"Can you shoot a gun?"
"Can't shoot no gun. Ain't got no gun."
"Knife?"
"Razor."
"Don't be without you razor."
"I couldn't kill it."
"Just in case you can, be handy to you razor."
This is the 2nd Crews novel I've read and in each one he organises a crazy frenzied crowd-goes-raving-mad scene at the end, like a southern gothic version of a gang of peasants burning down Frankenstein's castle. Kind of like throwing us all a big party.
So Harry Crews, yeah, he's another novelist I'd walk on the other side of the road to avoid.
Finally : One thing Harry does really well, like Pete Dexter, is write dialogue.
"Say, we done good" said Lummy. "Howsomever, it don be whatall I come to axe you bout."
Or here's a girl giving advice to her friend who's terrified of snakes:
"Can you shoot a gun?"
"Can't shoot no gun. Ain't got no gun."
"Knife?"
"Razor."
"Don't be without you razor."
"I couldn't kill it."
"Just in case you can, be handy to you razor."
April 20, 2022
I should give this harrowing short novel 5 stars but I refuse to.
Crews writes like a drunken angel on fire but he obviously has a deep desire to torment his readers. To dare them to cross his hellish rubicon.
His lead character, Joe Lon, is a local legend. A former high school football star who was once such a promising football player that teachers were willing to look the other way when it came to his most-likely being illiterate and send him on to one of Georgia’s colleges. But Joe Lon was just too piss poor lazy or just downright hateful to pursue such an ambition.
Joe Lon has no ambition other than turn a bottle of whiskey up and howl at the skies. He beats his wife, weaker men, and taunts his sister who years ago lost her mind, and he wanders the county aimlessly consumed by what his life might have been.
Central to the narrative are snakes. Snakes on everything. Diamond Back Rattlers, Timber Rattlers, exotic snakes of all kinds.
Each year in Mystic, Georgia they hold a rattlesnake hunt. People show up by the hundreds, by the thousands, and they compete on who can snare the fattest, the longest, the heaviest rattlesnake in the hills above Joe Lon’s family home.
And dog fights. Major highlight of this novel is the detailed account of a dogfight between two pit bulls and the brutal training of the dogs.
Oh, yeah: and some guy gets his pecker cut off.
Fun stuff for the inner child!
Predictably all Hell rains down on almost every character in this novel.
It’s not pretty but it’s a hell of a novel.
Crews writes like a drunken angel on fire but he obviously has a deep desire to torment his readers. To dare them to cross his hellish rubicon.
His lead character, Joe Lon, is a local legend. A former high school football star who was once such a promising football player that teachers were willing to look the other way when it came to his most-likely being illiterate and send him on to one of Georgia’s colleges. But Joe Lon was just too piss poor lazy or just downright hateful to pursue such an ambition.
Joe Lon has no ambition other than turn a bottle of whiskey up and howl at the skies. He beats his wife, weaker men, and taunts his sister who years ago lost her mind, and he wanders the county aimlessly consumed by what his life might have been.
Central to the narrative are snakes. Snakes on everything. Diamond Back Rattlers, Timber Rattlers, exotic snakes of all kinds.
Each year in Mystic, Georgia they hold a rattlesnake hunt. People show up by the hundreds, by the thousands, and they compete on who can snare the fattest, the longest, the heaviest rattlesnake in the hills above Joe Lon’s family home.
And dog fights. Major highlight of this novel is the detailed account of a dogfight between two pit bulls and the brutal training of the dogs.
Oh, yeah: and some guy gets his pecker cut off.
Fun stuff for the inner child!
Predictably all Hell rains down on almost every character in this novel.
It’s not pretty but it’s a hell of a novel.
February 26, 2016
When you get right down to it and cut all the bullshit? A snake may be one mean, cowardly and cold-blooded a motherfucker; but you hold 'em up and compare to a wretched excuse for the Lord's Creation like people? Hell, the way people is gonna make snakes look good every day of the goddamn week.
March 13, 2013
Prepare to let Harry Crews take you by the hand in this narrative, to dark places and witness things you would hate to see.
Right from the get-go he immerses you. Read the following visceral sentences in this first paragraph..
"She felt the snake between her breasts, felt him there, and loved him there, coiled, the deep tumescent S held rigid, ready to strike. She loved the way the snake looked sewn onto her V-neck letter sweater, his hard diamondback pattern shining in the sun. It was unseasonably hot, almost sixty degrees, for early November in Mystic, Georgia, and she could smell the light musk of her own sweat. She liked the sweat, liked the way it felt, slick as oil, in all the joints of her body, her bones, in the firm sliding muscles, tensed and locked now, ready to spring--to strike--when the band behind her fired up the school song: "Fight On Deadly Rattlers of Old Mystic High." "
He said in an interview on video this...
"The writers job is to get naked!
To hide nothing.
To look away from nothing.
To look at it.
To not blink.
To be not embarrassed or shamed of it.
Strip it down and lets get down to where the blood is, the bone is.
Instead of hiding it with clothes and all kinds of other stuff, luxury!"
He has achieved this successfully with this story. He takes you right to the bone of the story no glossy coating; his prettiness is the detail and the showing of his characters that ooze a visceral human ugliness and beauty.
The main character in this story Joe Lon is married with two babies and has other partners on the side, he has a had a lot of pain in the past and lives on the edge in the present a snake hunter, snake eater, drinker, a tough guy, power lifter and he's violent most of his life and that's all lived through in this story.
He hosts yearly a event of snake hunting on a stretch of land for camping near woods filled with snakes.
There is racism in this story and it does feature a black girl who receives abuse from a nasty man. There was to be a day of joy for her, which I was pleased for her. Here she comments in the story of her dilemma.
"White people were dangerous and snakes were dangerous and now the two were working together, each doing what the other told it to. She was sure she had seen a snake in a weeded ditch with the head of a white man. Right after she came out of the house on the way to Big Joe's, which she had immediately forgotten, she saw it, long and black and diamond-patterned in the ditch with a white man's head. It had blue eyes. The bluest eyes any white man ever had. She was sure she had seen it. She thought she had seen it. Maybe it was only a dream or a memory of another time. Whatever it was, she still saw it every time she closed her eyes, coiled there on the back of her eyelids, blue-eyed and dangerous."
He achieves the task of putting you into dark corners of the rural south into lives of these wild, bizarre and violent characters. He stops you in you tracks and possibly leaves you thinking and pondering on the evil that men do.
You will love or hate these characters contained within this novel. I do warn you this story does is hair raising and has some ugly moments of violence. For instance there is a page filled with a scene of dogs fighting to the death as a part of a game during the snake-hunting event. As a dog lover it does shock being there. He does successfully leave a mark and shock with his writing.
There is snake eating in this story. I first learnt of snake eating from Donald Ray Pollock's novel Devil all the Time. This story reminds me of characters in that story also Frank Bill's short story collection Crimes in Southern Indiana and possibly recent Last Cll or the Living by Peter Farris.
Readers may say his writing this is over the top, he tells it like it is!
I am sorry to say but the horrible things contained within DO happen in this beautiful place of ours called Earth. That doesn't make it right but his writing makes us not forget its there.
As a writer I think, from watching his interviews, he wanted to stand out and be heard.
He’s a writer who wrote with the experience of a lot a pain and challenges in life. He has done it all he has testified himself that there is nothing he has not tried. Been in a swamp with crocodiles, slashed his wrists as part of failed suicide and been 12 times in rehab. His life was plagued with drugs and heavy drinking.
With all this in his life he is a talented writer, when he puts pen to paper he sinkers you in to his characters, setting and voice.
His writing it seemed to be his therapy everyday he wrote 500 words and if he didn't he felt guilt.
A lot of the fuel, the energy for his writing, comes from his pain, he has had very hard and brutal upbringing as a young child suffered from polio he's father died young and mother.
He mentions hard times growing up with his brother.
A man that lived on the edge right to the brink of danger and comes back and writes stories recognized by many a great works. He was a hard working writer that has gained a large respect amongst readers.
Harry Crews will be remembered as a larger than life character, more and more as his work is read and life learned of.
Some things in mentioned in an interview about writing.
There’s a website dedicated to him @ http://www.harrycrews.org/
Review also @ http://more2read.com/review/a-feast-of-snakes-by-harry-crews/
Find these following videos also there>>>
http://more2read.com/harry-crews-on-dennis-miller-show/
Harry Crews on writing
Harry Crews: “Stories was everything and everything was stories…” The Rough Cut Of Harry Crews
Right from the get-go he immerses you. Read the following visceral sentences in this first paragraph..
"She felt the snake between her breasts, felt him there, and loved him there, coiled, the deep tumescent S held rigid, ready to strike. She loved the way the snake looked sewn onto her V-neck letter sweater, his hard diamondback pattern shining in the sun. It was unseasonably hot, almost sixty degrees, for early November in Mystic, Georgia, and she could smell the light musk of her own sweat. She liked the sweat, liked the way it felt, slick as oil, in all the joints of her body, her bones, in the firm sliding muscles, tensed and locked now, ready to spring--to strike--when the band behind her fired up the school song: "Fight On Deadly Rattlers of Old Mystic High." "
He said in an interview on video this...
"The writers job is to get naked!
To hide nothing.
To look away from nothing.
To look at it.
To not blink.
To be not embarrassed or shamed of it.
Strip it down and lets get down to where the blood is, the bone is.
Instead of hiding it with clothes and all kinds of other stuff, luxury!"
He has achieved this successfully with this story. He takes you right to the bone of the story no glossy coating; his prettiness is the detail and the showing of his characters that ooze a visceral human ugliness and beauty.
The main character in this story Joe Lon is married with two babies and has other partners on the side, he has a had a lot of pain in the past and lives on the edge in the present a snake hunter, snake eater, drinker, a tough guy, power lifter and he's violent most of his life and that's all lived through in this story.
He hosts yearly a event of snake hunting on a stretch of land for camping near woods filled with snakes.
There is racism in this story and it does feature a black girl who receives abuse from a nasty man. There was to be a day of joy for her, which I was pleased for her. Here she comments in the story of her dilemma.
"White people were dangerous and snakes were dangerous and now the two were working together, each doing what the other told it to. She was sure she had seen a snake in a weeded ditch with the head of a white man. Right after she came out of the house on the way to Big Joe's, which she had immediately forgotten, she saw it, long and black and diamond-patterned in the ditch with a white man's head. It had blue eyes. The bluest eyes any white man ever had. She was sure she had seen it. She thought she had seen it. Maybe it was only a dream or a memory of another time. Whatever it was, she still saw it every time she closed her eyes, coiled there on the back of her eyelids, blue-eyed and dangerous."
He achieves the task of putting you into dark corners of the rural south into lives of these wild, bizarre and violent characters. He stops you in you tracks and possibly leaves you thinking and pondering on the evil that men do.
You will love or hate these characters contained within this novel. I do warn you this story does is hair raising and has some ugly moments of violence. For instance there is a page filled with a scene of dogs fighting to the death as a part of a game during the snake-hunting event. As a dog lover it does shock being there. He does successfully leave a mark and shock with his writing.
There is snake eating in this story. I first learnt of snake eating from Donald Ray Pollock's novel Devil all the Time. This story reminds me of characters in that story also Frank Bill's short story collection Crimes in Southern Indiana and possibly recent Last Cll or the Living by Peter Farris.
Readers may say his writing this is over the top, he tells it like it is!
I am sorry to say but the horrible things contained within DO happen in this beautiful place of ours called Earth. That doesn't make it right but his writing makes us not forget its there.
As a writer I think, from watching his interviews, he wanted to stand out and be heard.
He’s a writer who wrote with the experience of a lot a pain and challenges in life. He has done it all he has testified himself that there is nothing he has not tried. Been in a swamp with crocodiles, slashed his wrists as part of failed suicide and been 12 times in rehab. His life was plagued with drugs and heavy drinking.
With all this in his life he is a talented writer, when he puts pen to paper he sinkers you in to his characters, setting and voice.
His writing it seemed to be his therapy everyday he wrote 500 words and if he didn't he felt guilt.
A lot of the fuel, the energy for his writing, comes from his pain, he has had very hard and brutal upbringing as a young child suffered from polio he's father died young and mother.
He mentions hard times growing up with his brother.
A man that lived on the edge right to the brink of danger and comes back and writes stories recognized by many a great works. He was a hard working writer that has gained a large respect amongst readers.
Harry Crews will be remembered as a larger than life character, more and more as his work is read and life learned of.
Some things in mentioned in an interview about writing.
"The real artist with no tear in his eye and no sadness in his heart, puts the pages in the fire and does it again!"
"All art is a metaphor it's by telling you one thing when your mean something else.
The Old Man in the Sea is not about fishing!"
"Writing a book is like torture that you don't know, but after it’s done and there it is. It's a joy like unlike anything else, I think it's the closest that a man can come to knowing what is feels like to have a baby."
There’s a website dedicated to him @ http://www.harrycrews.org/
Review also @ http://more2read.com/review/a-feast-of-snakes-by-harry-crews/
Find these following videos also there>>>
http://more2read.com/harry-crews-on-dennis-miller-show/
Harry Crews on writing
Harry Crews: “Stories was everything and everything was stories…” The Rough Cut Of Harry Crews
March 19, 2017
A bunch of crazy folks (including Joe Lon,our unlikeable moonshine selling protagonist) in Mystic, Georgia are gearing up for the annual snake round up. Just about everything you don't want to read about from brutal dog fighting to dismemberment , in one (thankfully) short book. On The Southern Literary Trail -catch up.
October 1, 2022
The first Harry Crews novel that I ever read. I ordered it when rare American novels began to appear on Amazon India and Flipkart. I became aware of Crews after his appearance in Sean Penn's The Indian Runner which is one of my favorite movies of the 90s.
Apart from the violent end, an erotic scene in A Feast of Snakes has always stuck with me. A few men, including the hero are performing push ups in the outdoors and a beautiful scantily clad woman emerges out of a caravan and watches the men competing.
Nearly every single Crews novel is set around some competition or freak show. Here it is a snake hunt. Crews' Body was set during a body building competition. Car was about a heir of a junkyard business entering a reality show where he eats a car which is beamed out over TV and media. The Gospel Singer was about the arrival of an evangelist singer in his home town and how it drives up the passions of the crazy town folk. Naked in Garden Hills had a subplot with the creation of a freak show in a beautiful mountain destroyed by abandoned phosphate factories. All these competitions and endeavors bring out the worst out of its inhabitants.
This is another novel set in the American South filled with characters whose inner lives are a pungent and acrid curry of voracious sweaty sexual appetites, alcohol and barely contained violence. Writers and directors who make violent films about their own people are actually show offs. Don't you think so? Oooh look at all the cool badass flagrant sexually devious alcoholic non conformist people in my community/hometown. Harry Crews is like the Martin Scorsese of Southern America. Like Scorsese, Crews shows us the "dark underbelly" (hate this phrase but it is what it is) of his land and people. But instead of becoming repelled, I eagerly move onto the next Harry Crews novel. And even try to discover more like writers like Crews.
Crews knew a thing about men losing it and succumbing to their basest violent instincts. Don't believe me? Read his essay called Climbing the Tower. It is scarier than all the biopics of Dahmer and Bundy.
Apart from the violent end, an erotic scene in A Feast of Snakes has always stuck with me. A few men, including the hero are performing push ups in the outdoors and a beautiful scantily clad woman emerges out of a caravan and watches the men competing.
Nearly every single Crews novel is set around some competition or freak show. Here it is a snake hunt. Crews' Body was set during a body building competition. Car was about a heir of a junkyard business entering a reality show where he eats a car which is beamed out over TV and media. The Gospel Singer was about the arrival of an evangelist singer in his home town and how it drives up the passions of the crazy town folk. Naked in Garden Hills had a subplot with the creation of a freak show in a beautiful mountain destroyed by abandoned phosphate factories. All these competitions and endeavors bring out the worst out of its inhabitants.
This is another novel set in the American South filled with characters whose inner lives are a pungent and acrid curry of voracious sweaty sexual appetites, alcohol and barely contained violence. Writers and directors who make violent films about their own people are actually show offs. Don't you think so? Oooh look at all the cool badass flagrant sexually devious alcoholic non conformist people in my community/hometown. Harry Crews is like the Martin Scorsese of Southern America. Like Scorsese, Crews shows us the "dark underbelly" (hate this phrase but it is what it is) of his land and people. But instead of becoming repelled, I eagerly move onto the next Harry Crews novel. And even try to discover more like writers like Crews.
Crews knew a thing about men losing it and succumbing to their basest violent instincts. Don't believe me? Read his essay called Climbing the Tower. It is scarier than all the biopics of Dahmer and Bundy.
May 12, 2023
I've read a lot of brutal and offensive books in my day, but A Feast of Snakes took things to a whole other level. Its vile, stomach-churning narrative relentlessly chipped away at my resolve until I was forced to throw in the towel. Maybe I'm going soft in my old age, but I just couldn't hack it.
If you're brave enough to tackle this book, my advice is to seek emotional counseling, keep a bottle of brain bleach within arm's reach at all times, and gird your loins for scenes like the following:
I already have enough nightmares in my head, so kindly fuck all the way off, Mr. Crews!
-----------------------------------------------
¹That scene was condensed and reworded, not a direct quote
If you're brave enough to tackle this book, my advice is to seek emotional counseling, keep a bottle of brain bleach within arm's reach at all times, and gird your loins for scenes like the following:
When Joe Lon sat down on the edge of his sister’s filthy bed, she pushed the covers back to sit up next to him, looked him dead in the eye and said “I would kill it if I could,” then reached down and lifted a piece of shit out of her chamber pot, mashed it into her hair then calmly eased her befouled head back down onto her pillow to watch the snow and static dance on her TV screen.¹That was the point at which I rage-quit this repulsive book! To be fair, the story was deplorable long before that point, that was simply the final straw. Honestly, it's hard to imagine why an author would even write such a wretched scene, but after reading The Girl Next Door, I had to swear off sadistic stories for a while.
I already have enough nightmares in my head, so kindly fuck all the way off, Mr. Crews!
-----------------------------------------------
¹That scene was condensed and reworded, not a direct quote
April 22, 2011
If you read to feel bad, this book is for you. Ok, I simply hated this book. It was something like being on a bad acid trip (if you can't imagine that, then trust me). I've never really hated a book before this one (and hope to never again), but this book gave me the worst feeling to my core. I finally just put it down for good at the point in the story where there is a scene of animal cruelty. I didn't see the point of prolonging the agony. My advice is "don't bother" (unless you like terrible images that stick with you for longer than you'd wish). As for it having to do with the south - I'm southern (have been for 47 years now) and there wasn't a single thing in that novel that struck me as familiar.
October 16, 2022
“I don’t like snakes,” she said.
“You’re in a hell of a place if you don’t like snakes. Why’d you come?”
“You’re in a hell of a place if you don’t like snakes. Why’d you come?”
September 1, 2014
I didn't enjoy reading this book. I was happy to be finished. But I think that was entirely the point.
I haven't read Crews before and I probably wouldn't have if it wasn't this month's book club book. I'm not opposed to Southern gothic lit - Flannery O'Connor is one of my favorite writers, I've mostly enjoyed most of what I've read so far by Daniel Woodrell, and there are others that my sun-stroked mind isn't coming up with right now.
There's a grittiness in all these authors that appeals to me, normally. This story, however, takes that grittiness to a whole 'nother level. To this really mean level. This is not a book for the faint-hearted or highly sensitive.
I liked the premise - there's a congregation of sorts in a southern Georgia town for the annual rattlesnake hunt. That's not something you read about very often, right? A whole motley crew of folks show up and shit gets real. I mean... shit really gets real. Blood is spilled, and in some rather ingenious ways. (Again, not for the faint-hearted.)
It's also a quick read, partly because it's short (less than 200 pages), but also partly because you don't want it to go on for very long because you will lose any hope you might have for the good in humanity. These people are dicks, straight up. These are not people you would want to know, and I'm not sure if these were people Crews knew and liked, or knew and didn't like, or if he considered himself one of them. I don't know enough about him and while I haven't read anything else by him, I'm under the impression most of his fiction is like this.
But, whatever, it's a mean, mean story. Mean people doing mean things and being mean to each other. It wasn't a comfortable read. This doesn't make it bad; but it didn't exactly appeal to me either. I do like that Crews apparently wasn't afraid of portraying some serious ugliness.
I haven't read Crews before and I probably wouldn't have if it wasn't this month's book club book. I'm not opposed to Southern gothic lit - Flannery O'Connor is one of my favorite writers, I've mostly enjoyed most of what I've read so far by Daniel Woodrell, and there are others that my sun-stroked mind isn't coming up with right now.
There's a grittiness in all these authors that appeals to me, normally. This story, however, takes that grittiness to a whole 'nother level. To this really mean level. This is not a book for the faint-hearted or highly sensitive.
I liked the premise - there's a congregation of sorts in a southern Georgia town for the annual rattlesnake hunt. That's not something you read about very often, right? A whole motley crew of folks show up and shit gets real. I mean... shit really gets real. Blood is spilled, and in some rather ingenious ways. (Again, not for the faint-hearted.)
It's also a quick read, partly because it's short (less than 200 pages), but also partly because you don't want it to go on for very long because you will lose any hope you might have for the good in humanity. These people are dicks, straight up. These are not people you would want to know, and I'm not sure if these were people Crews knew and liked, or knew and didn't like, or if he considered himself one of them. I don't know enough about him and while I haven't read anything else by him, I'm under the impression most of his fiction is like this.
But, whatever, it's a mean, mean story. Mean people doing mean things and being mean to each other. It wasn't a comfortable read. This doesn't make it bad; but it didn't exactly appeal to me either. I do like that Crews apparently wasn't afraid of portraying some serious ugliness.
December 31, 2015
Wicked people doing wicked things. It's grotesque, appalling, shocking, monstrous and outrageous. It's not for the faint, but I'm not sure who is meant to read this. It opens your eyes to some crazy crap! Harry Crews draws you to this place and group of people that you can't step away. It's a rough read but I liked it, a lot. No judgement please! December Read for The Trail nominated by GR friend LeAnne, who liked it, too. Also, liked by GR friend Kirk. Now it's documented and I don't feel so weird for liking this book so much I gave it 4 stars.
November 25, 2023
I don't mind dark stories. Well, I actually like them. It's very rare to come across a story that even I feel is too dark to recommend to anyone.
This is a story about the cancerous hope of trying to fix broken things. Snakes, sex, racism, amputated penises, and claustrophobic small ugly towns.
This is a story about the cancerous hope of trying to fix broken things. Snakes, sex, racism, amputated penises, and claustrophobic small ugly towns.
August 24, 2017
Excellent stuff - the only reason it did not get 5 stars is because I am far too much of a middle-class englishman to really love this sort of thing, and there was not enough going on on a prose level to make up for any lack of engagement with the narrative (not that the writing was in any way deficient - he writes brilliantly).
June 5, 2014
Sumbitch, that was violent and crazy. Extra point for creative concept. A Classic!
June 23, 2016
Here’s where it all comes together: the dense religiosity; the vituperative male hostility and dogmatic racism; the freakish impulse to kiss Death’s purpled lips rubbing clavicles with POV’s that switch with the precision and rhythmic grace of rail tracks. The critics and readers alike are entirely correct in considering A Feast of Snakes Crews’ best. From an objectivist’s standpoint, there’s no contest. While it is not my favorite—that would still be the hyper-naturalist masterpiece The Hawk is Dying—I readily cede that it is his crowning achievement, the summation of a career in that it brings together all of his many strengths between two convenient covers.
As this is also his most popular book, there’s also no need to add all that much. If you are one-stop shopping for Crews, look no further—this has it all. The fact that Harry was able to pull it off (hey, maybe taking that year off was a good idea!) is astounding, as virtually all of his trademarks are accounted for. For fans of his freaks, your box is ticked (though, thankfully, subdued). For you deep Southern Goth hillbilly bats, your check has been cashed. Lover of the patented Crews switcheroo ending that no one sees coming and leaves you gobsmacked? Your ardor is returned tenfold with spangled kisses on your brow.
Read this from the opening of Part Two, and bear witness to the particular genius of Crews atop his own private Idaho:
“Duffy Deeter in an effort of will was thinking of Treblinka. He had already finished with Dachau and Auschwitz. Images of death pumped in his head. Behind his pinched burning eyelids he saw a pile of frozen eyeglasses where they had been torn from the faces of long lines of men, women, and children before they had been led into the gassy showers.
“Daddy. Please, daddy, come. I love … love … But it hurts.”
Duffy allowed his eyes to slide open. He permitted himself one glance through the window of his modified Winnebago. Children raced over the dusting landscape with snakes wrapped about their arms. Directly across the road an old man with twists of gray hair screwed into his head waved his hands wildly at two heavily muscled young men who alternately hustled their balls and spat in the dirt.
Duffy’s gaze remained on the two young men for a long moment and then he clamped his eyes shut again. Oh Jesus Oh God. Think about those showerheads and the wonderful gas spewing out into the children. Think about the stunned and naked mothers and their gassed dying children.
Duffy felt her writhe beneath him as she whispered: “You’re killing me.”
Yes, and by God he would. He’d kill. He’d do anything.”
As this is also his most popular book, there’s also no need to add all that much. If you are one-stop shopping for Crews, look no further—this has it all. The fact that Harry was able to pull it off (hey, maybe taking that year off was a good idea!) is astounding, as virtually all of his trademarks are accounted for. For fans of his freaks, your box is ticked (though, thankfully, subdued). For you deep Southern Goth hillbilly bats, your check has been cashed. Lover of the patented Crews switcheroo ending that no one sees coming and leaves you gobsmacked? Your ardor is returned tenfold with spangled kisses on your brow.
Read this from the opening of Part Two, and bear witness to the particular genius of Crews atop his own private Idaho:
“Duffy Deeter in an effort of will was thinking of Treblinka. He had already finished with Dachau and Auschwitz. Images of death pumped in his head. Behind his pinched burning eyelids he saw a pile of frozen eyeglasses where they had been torn from the faces of long lines of men, women, and children before they had been led into the gassy showers.
“Daddy. Please, daddy, come. I love … love … But it hurts.”
Duffy allowed his eyes to slide open. He permitted himself one glance through the window of his modified Winnebago. Children raced over the dusting landscape with snakes wrapped about their arms. Directly across the road an old man with twists of gray hair screwed into his head waved his hands wildly at two heavily muscled young men who alternately hustled their balls and spat in the dirt.
Duffy’s gaze remained on the two young men for a long moment and then he clamped his eyes shut again. Oh Jesus Oh God. Think about those showerheads and the wonderful gas spewing out into the children. Think about the stunned and naked mothers and their gassed dying children.
Duffy felt her writhe beneath him as she whispered: “You’re killing me.”
Yes, and by God he would. He’d kill. He’d do anything.”
April 29, 2022
3.5* rounded up
TRIGGER WARNING: Animal abuse, alcoholism, racism and violence.
Harry Crews was an author from a different time and he writes a story that makes you think and feel. This is my first Harry Crews novel and it is definitely far removed from my usual style and books of choice. It wont be for everyone and I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.
I can’t say I loved the story but I think that it is not a story to be loved. It made me feel the depths of depression that the main protagonist is feeling and it had all the Southern charm and grit smashed directly into you face.
Joe Lon Mackey is a former football star who has fallen from grace quite explicitly. He is married to a good woman but is abusive, he’s got two babies but he’s disinterested and he is a terrible alcoholic. This is a story of how Joe Lon slowly but surely begins to lose his sanity in a town that he will never leave and a life he was destined to live.
Set in Mystic, Georgia during the Rattlesnake Roundup there are mad characters in abundance and all of the events lead to a visceral culmination of Joe Lon’s eventual downfall.
There is no hand holding in this book, there are no set chapters and if you expect it to make sense all the way through then this book is not for you. There is no real start or finish, there is just a story on a page and it is told through the looking glass of the depths of despair.
If you are feeling even remotely down I recommend giving this one a miss.
As I said, this is not my usual book of choice and I didn’t love it but I don’t think you were supposed to. You can feel through the pages the oppressive heat, you can feel the danger in the air and you can sense the impending doom which does make it a bit of a masterpiece.
TRIGGER WARNING: Animal abuse, alcoholism, racism and violence.
Harry Crews was an author from a different time and he writes a story that makes you think and feel. This is my first Harry Crews novel and it is definitely far removed from my usual style and books of choice. It wont be for everyone and I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.
I can’t say I loved the story but I think that it is not a story to be loved. It made me feel the depths of depression that the main protagonist is feeling and it had all the Southern charm and grit smashed directly into you face.
Joe Lon Mackey is a former football star who has fallen from grace quite explicitly. He is married to a good woman but is abusive, he’s got two babies but he’s disinterested and he is a terrible alcoholic. This is a story of how Joe Lon slowly but surely begins to lose his sanity in a town that he will never leave and a life he was destined to live.
Set in Mystic, Georgia during the Rattlesnake Roundup there are mad characters in abundance and all of the events lead to a visceral culmination of Joe Lon’s eventual downfall.
There is no hand holding in this book, there are no set chapters and if you expect it to make sense all the way through then this book is not for you. There is no real start or finish, there is just a story on a page and it is told through the looking glass of the depths of despair.
If you are feeling even remotely down I recommend giving this one a miss.
As I said, this is not my usual book of choice and I didn’t love it but I don’t think you were supposed to. You can feel through the pages the oppressive heat, you can feel the danger in the air and you can sense the impending doom which does make it a bit of a masterpiece.
October 14, 2017
Three audiences I will address:
1) If you're familiar with this title, and know what you're getting into........go for it; it's a ruckus ride- pretty much what you expect it'll be based on what you know is coming. You're in for some classic Crews here.
2) If you stumbled across it because you liked A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, you're gonna like this for a whole different reason, but you at least can "get" where he came up with all this whiskey fueled, venom laden, violence energized, cruelty laced, screwed up familial relationships, complete with sexercise classes every 30 pages or so (from about any angle you might find interesting or alarming)- highly offensive in a way that others who haven't read the memoir will not see through to get to his core message.
3) If you picked this book up at a used book store, and like the cover, etc. Stop, google name "Harry Crews" and look at the "images"........that's not the character, that's the author........and he's an intellectual academic compared to the characters you'll find here (actually he was quite intellectual and academic)- he's gonna rock your world if you proceed. You WILL NOT be able to tell your book club you liked this book- and you better have a pretty strong relationship with your spouse if you expect to talk through this one in any detail. If you just decided to pass on this book FOR PETE'S SAKE put it on the shelf where someone in groups 1 and 2 can find it easily...........even his paperbacks are getting too hard to find.
1) If you're familiar with this title, and know what you're getting into........go for it; it's a ruckus ride- pretty much what you expect it'll be based on what you know is coming. You're in for some classic Crews here.
2) If you stumbled across it because you liked A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, you're gonna like this for a whole different reason, but you at least can "get" where he came up with all this whiskey fueled, venom laden, violence energized, cruelty laced, screwed up familial relationships, complete with sexercise classes every 30 pages or so (from about any angle you might find interesting or alarming)- highly offensive in a way that others who haven't read the memoir will not see through to get to his core message.
3) If you picked this book up at a used book store, and like the cover, etc. Stop, google name "Harry Crews" and look at the "images"........that's not the character, that's the author........and he's an intellectual academic compared to the characters you'll find here (actually he was quite intellectual and academic)- he's gonna rock your world if you proceed. You WILL NOT be able to tell your book club you liked this book- and you better have a pretty strong relationship with your spouse if you expect to talk through this one in any detail. If you just decided to pass on this book FOR PETE'S SAKE put it on the shelf where someone in groups 1 and 2 can find it easily...........even his paperbacks are getting too hard to find.
February 6, 2022
Festín de serpientes es la segunda obra que pasa por nuestras manos de Harry Crews. Confirma lo que se barruntaba con Desnudo en Garden Hills: se trata de un autor que, más allá de su biografía de tipo duro, de sus personajes a imitación de ésta y de los avatares que le suceden, es un gran escritor, puede que incluso eclipsado por ese halo mítico que le rodea.
Festín de serpientes está compuesto por una serie de antihéroes como Crews acostumbra a incluir en sus relatos sureños. Nos encontramos en Mystic, un pueblo de Georgia en el que abundan las serpientes. Este hecho pie a que cada año se celebre un festival cuyos actos más relevantes son la elección de Miss Crótalo y un rodeo de serpientes. El festival congrega a una serie de personajes histriónicos, pendencieros y al margen, muy al margen, de lo políticamente correcto. Entre todos ellos destaca el nativo Joe Lon. También su familia. A lo largo de las páginas que componen el libro asistiremos a un desfile de situaciones al borde la demencia y la maldad.

Festín de serpientes es un libro que puede funcionar desde varios aspectos. Para todos aquellos que buscamos historias que cumplan con el cliché de la vida sureña, pero al mismo tiempo, también con su antítesis, con su parodia. Es quizá ésta la característica que destaca en Crews sobre otros autores del género, su capacidad de alejarse del centro de la narración, de romper y deglutir mitos. Más allá de toda diatriba, Festín de serpientes es una obra literaria de muchos quilates. Y es por ello por lo que debe valorarse.
Festín de serpientes está compuesto por una serie de antihéroes como Crews acostumbra a incluir en sus relatos sureños. Nos encontramos en Mystic, un pueblo de Georgia en el que abundan las serpientes. Este hecho pie a que cada año se celebre un festival cuyos actos más relevantes son la elección de Miss Crótalo y un rodeo de serpientes. El festival congrega a una serie de personajes histriónicos, pendencieros y al margen, muy al margen, de lo políticamente correcto. Entre todos ellos destaca el nativo Joe Lon. También su familia. A lo largo de las páginas que componen el libro asistiremos a un desfile de situaciones al borde la demencia y la maldad.

Festín de serpientes es un libro que puede funcionar desde varios aspectos. Para todos aquellos que buscamos historias que cumplan con el cliché de la vida sureña, pero al mismo tiempo, también con su antítesis, con su parodia. Es quizá ésta la característica que destaca en Crews sobre otros autores del género, su capacidad de alejarse del centro de la narración, de romper y deglutir mitos. Más allá de toda diatriba, Festín de serpientes es una obra literaria de muchos quilates. Y es por ello por lo que debe valorarse.
May 13, 2010
If you think Jim Harrison spikes his ink with testosterone, you ain't seen nothing until you've read Harry Crews. He makes Harrison read like a society page columnist in comparison. Actually a better comparison might be Albert Camus. Seriously. I think if Camus had been born in Mystic, Georgia, he might've written this book instead of The Stranger.
A similar existential abyss sits at the center of Crews's novel, an abyss as mean and violent and frightening as the snake pits and dog-fight pits covering the landscape.
Just as it's almost impossible to embrace Meursault, it's impossible to like Joe Lon, a raging, wife-beating-cheating drunk. But such is Crews' talent that you come to understand, even sympathize, with Joe Lon (understanding and sympathy occupying rooms at opposite ends of the house from liking, of course). Mind you, Crews crosses the line (wherever you place it, he crosses it) in a defiant fashion that almost dares you to toss the book out the window. The quality of Crews' prose was the only thing that kept me hurdling the first few lines -- hell, ditches, trenches, moats, swollen rivers -- he crossed. The man can write. And tell a story. There's something deeper going on here than simple, mindless redneck preening and rage. And while the ending is way over the top -- think of Grand Canyon-wide line -- it is also has a surprising element of ambiguity and subtlety, a final image that is both disquieting and generous. In fact, if you were to pitch Crews as Southern Gothic writer, in his own strange way, I find him more subtle than Flannery O'Connor, who I find increasingly mechanical, even a touch didactic, upon rereading.
Whether you love or hate this book, by the end you will probably feel like, in the words of Coach Tump, a "tainted sumbitch."
And that ain't necessarily a bad thing.
A similar existential abyss sits at the center of Crews's novel, an abyss as mean and violent and frightening as the snake pits and dog-fight pits covering the landscape.
Just as it's almost impossible to embrace Meursault, it's impossible to like Joe Lon, a raging, wife-beating-cheating drunk. But such is Crews' talent that you come to understand, even sympathize, with Joe Lon (understanding and sympathy occupying rooms at opposite ends of the house from liking, of course). Mind you, Crews crosses the line (wherever you place it, he crosses it) in a defiant fashion that almost dares you to toss the book out the window. The quality of Crews' prose was the only thing that kept me hurdling the first few lines -- hell, ditches, trenches, moats, swollen rivers -- he crossed. The man can write. And tell a story. There's something deeper going on here than simple, mindless redneck preening and rage. And while the ending is way over the top -- think of Grand Canyon-wide line -- it is also has a surprising element of ambiguity and subtlety, a final image that is both disquieting and generous. In fact, if you were to pitch Crews as Southern Gothic writer, in his own strange way, I find him more subtle than Flannery O'Connor, who I find increasingly mechanical, even a touch didactic, upon rereading.
Whether you love or hate this book, by the end you will probably feel like, in the words of Coach Tump, a "tainted sumbitch."
And that ain't necessarily a bad thing.
April 13, 2012
I am now officially a Harry Crews fan.
This novel is mad, seductive and trashy in the best way. The characters are ghoulish, cheerleaders & all. The snakes play an incredible role. They're worshipped, taunted, revered, skinned & ingested - I loved their omnipotent presence.
Joe Lon, The protagonist wants to wail, grow in violence, he's all fists and need and his coiled malice erupts to a fantastic conclusion.
There is much to admire here.
This novel is mad, seductive and trashy in the best way. The characters are ghoulish, cheerleaders & all. The snakes play an incredible role. They're worshipped, taunted, revered, skinned & ingested - I loved their omnipotent presence.
Joe Lon, The protagonist wants to wail, grow in violence, he's all fists and need and his coiled malice erupts to a fantastic conclusion.
There is much to admire here.
January 13, 2010
Mystic, Georgia is home to the annual Rattlesnake Roundup. The local sheriff is a one-legged, hard drinking, ex-local football star who locks up any woman he fancies until they “put out.” Joe Lon, another character was a former football star resentful of his girlfriend Berenice, former Miss Mystic Rattle beauty champ, who had the temerity to go off to college where she became enamored of a "debate player" leaving Joe stuck with his wife Elfie, whose body has gone to hell after two children, messed up her teeth and can't keep the kids quiet. Elfie’s sister, Beeder, meanwhile is descending into her own private hell, lying in bed doing nothing but watching “the TeeVee” at loud volume and smearing feces in her hair after seeing her mother commit suicide rather than stay with her abusive father.
Lottie Mae, a young black girl, helps out Joe's sister sometimes by cooking for them. She likes watching the TeeVee with Beeder, especially during the NBC Nightly News that was so much better than detective stories and soap operas where you had to "put up with a lot of talking and fooling around before you got to the good parts." The news "went right to the robbing and killing, the crying and the blood, burning buildings and mashed cars. Them NBC Nightly News sumbitches was mean. Soon kill you as look at you. Killed somebody every night. Sometimes drowned whole towns in the ocean. Or made babies grow together at the shoulder." Followed by a Ford commercial, "The closer you look, the better we look!"
Joe was beloved by the whole town and his exceptional quietness off the field "everybody chose to call courtesy. He had the name of being the most courteous boy in all of Lebeau County, although it was commonly known that he had done several pretty bad things, one of which was taking a traveling salesman out to July Creek and drowning him while nearly the entire first string watched from high up on the bank where they were sipping beer."
Joe's only future seems to be selling illegal liquor. Everything is closing in on him as he begins to feel like in a barrel of snakes, "a writhing of the darkness, an incessant boiling of something thick and slow-moving." Joe's father is an intensely cruel and savage man who runs his pit bulls to exhaustion to prepare them for the dog fights the night of the snake hunt. Joe knows that things have become a little crazy, as more and more people crowd into the campgrounds, overflowing the portapotties, and an undercurrent of violence begins to pervade the area. "Just a bunch of crazy people cranking up to git crazier," he says. "But that's all right. Feel on the edge of doing something outstanding myself." He does indeed go over the edge, and the sheriff gets his comeuppance in a spectacularly appropriate manner by Lottie Mae, one of the sheriff's victims who faces her fear of his snake in her own way.
Crews portrays a dark side of the South, filled with grotesque characters and bizarre places, incest, adultery, and murder. One wonders how people could descend to such depths. Personally, I think it's the influence of country western music.
Lottie Mae, a young black girl, helps out Joe's sister sometimes by cooking for them. She likes watching the TeeVee with Beeder, especially during the NBC Nightly News that was so much better than detective stories and soap operas where you had to "put up with a lot of talking and fooling around before you got to the good parts." The news "went right to the robbing and killing, the crying and the blood, burning buildings and mashed cars. Them NBC Nightly News sumbitches was mean. Soon kill you as look at you. Killed somebody every night. Sometimes drowned whole towns in the ocean. Or made babies grow together at the shoulder." Followed by a Ford commercial, "The closer you look, the better we look!"
Joe was beloved by the whole town and his exceptional quietness off the field "everybody chose to call courtesy. He had the name of being the most courteous boy in all of Lebeau County, although it was commonly known that he had done several pretty bad things, one of which was taking a traveling salesman out to July Creek and drowning him while nearly the entire first string watched from high up on the bank where they were sipping beer."
Joe's only future seems to be selling illegal liquor. Everything is closing in on him as he begins to feel like in a barrel of snakes, "a writhing of the darkness, an incessant boiling of something thick and slow-moving." Joe's father is an intensely cruel and savage man who runs his pit bulls to exhaustion to prepare them for the dog fights the night of the snake hunt. Joe knows that things have become a little crazy, as more and more people crowd into the campgrounds, overflowing the portapotties, and an undercurrent of violence begins to pervade the area. "Just a bunch of crazy people cranking up to git crazier," he says. "But that's all right. Feel on the edge of doing something outstanding myself." He does indeed go over the edge, and the sheriff gets his comeuppance in a spectacularly appropriate manner by Lottie Mae, one of the sheriff's victims who faces her fear of his snake in her own way.
Crews portrays a dark side of the South, filled with grotesque characters and bizarre places, incest, adultery, and murder. One wonders how people could descend to such depths. Personally, I think it's the influence of country western music.
April 12, 2015
Finished 8/20/08
Part of me hates this book. Hates the characters, their slithery morality and unfulfilled aspirations, hates how the emptiness, the vacuum left is filled the coiled hissing forms of snakes and how it gets under the skin and into the stomach and bowels. I acknowledge the power and intensity Harry Crews has at his command, but I do not admire his A Feast of Snakes.
Each year in Mystic, Georgia, Jon Lon organizes the Rattlesnake Roundup, a festival that attracts a denizen of unsavory gypsies, thrill-seekers, and drunkards. They arrive in campers and Winnebagos, setup wares, fight dogs, partake in a beauty pageant, and set fire to a thirty-foot-tall snake. So yes, it’s a hillbilly version of the wicker man.
‘Hillbilly’ is an appropriate term, since the Jon Lon’s plight plays out as hillbilly angst. That’s because Jon Lon cannot find love. Not in his wife, his inamorata, his children, his friends, his family, his job, or his position as organizer of the Roundup. No, Jon Lon only laments for the past and his former glories of high school football star and his old girlfriend. One wonders how Jon Lon expects to find “true love” if his definition involves atm, which Crews graphically describes in one of many vile, foul, and cruel sex scenes. So Jon Lon is stuck operating the liquor store once owned by his father and spends most of the day drinking and bitching at his wife. His father isn’t much different except that he bitches at his daughter since his wife killed herself years ago.
The whole book is foul and cruel. Foul because Crews revels in shock. Cruel because Crews casts a hateful eye on all his citizens and puts them through the wringer. Even Lottie Mae, the sole redeeming subplot in the entire novel, is brutalized, driven insane, and disturbed by snakes before she is able to exact an even crueler revenge.
Lottie Mae, a young black girl, is the object of the sheriff’s desire. The sheriff Buddy is a mangled man, a landlocked hillbilly pirate, I guess, with his peg leg. His real leg he lost in ‘Nam. Buddy, too, laments the past for he, too, was once a football star. Most of the male characters were. Now he occupies his time by carrying snakes, one in a sack and the other in his pants. Yes, that is a metaphor Crews pounds in your head, over and over. The phallic nature of snakes. The sexual connotation of Eve’s temptation, of the snake in the garden. And on and on.
I’m exaggerating somewhat, since the snake metaphor is one of the few things Crews deftly handles, despite the overkill. His similes and his prose, however, are dull, especially in the first half. Let me quote a little gem here describing Jon Lon’s wife: “Two inches below her navel her belly just leaped out in this absolutely unbelievable way.” Well, that’s absolutely unbelievable! But it gets better: “she looked like she was carrying a basketball under her dress.” A basketball, no kidding!
The dialogue, mostly in dialect, is authentic, though I questioned some of the intentional misspellings. And the prose does get better in the second half, lyrical at times, but he still stumbles over similes. With obvious imaginative powers, why does Crews stumble with similes?
Rereading what I wrote, I’m shocked I haven’t mentioned the violence. The book’s back cover notes that Crews covers the vices of “adultery, castration, suicide, and murder.” This list, of course, leaves out bullying, rape, drunkenness, drunken driving, fights, lies, animal brutality including mutilation and dog fighting, racism, sexism, abandonment, kidnapping, battered wives, neglected wives, paraphilia, madness, delusions, feces fascination, religion bashing, and idleness. All of which are ingredients for an instant cult classic!
But yes, there is a lot of violence, a lot of touting of masculinity and then more violence. One could posit that Crews argues against masculinity and its corrupting power, which is true. But Crews idealizes athleticism in a well-rendered scene of weight-lifting and dick-measuring, which in the south is how one determines the pecking order. The equivalent of dogs sniffing the other’s rectum.
Despite the Southern Gothic nature, it’s rather insulting for readers cite Crews alongside the masters Faulkner and O’Connor. Both incorporated humanity in their works, dealt with underlying problems in the south, and both, in the end, were redemptive, even if at times it was a freak show. Crews, however, is just a freak show. With the exception of Lottie Mae, who’s in so little of the book and so distant from the main thread, A Feast of Snakes has little value, which disappoints me since Crews does have intensity as a writer.
Part of me hates this book. Hates the characters, their slithery morality and unfulfilled aspirations, hates how the emptiness, the vacuum left is filled the coiled hissing forms of snakes and how it gets under the skin and into the stomach and bowels. I acknowledge the power and intensity Harry Crews has at his command, but I do not admire his A Feast of Snakes.
Each year in Mystic, Georgia, Jon Lon organizes the Rattlesnake Roundup, a festival that attracts a denizen of unsavory gypsies, thrill-seekers, and drunkards. They arrive in campers and Winnebagos, setup wares, fight dogs, partake in a beauty pageant, and set fire to a thirty-foot-tall snake. So yes, it’s a hillbilly version of the wicker man.
‘Hillbilly’ is an appropriate term, since the Jon Lon’s plight plays out as hillbilly angst. That’s because Jon Lon cannot find love. Not in his wife, his inamorata, his children, his friends, his family, his job, or his position as organizer of the Roundup. No, Jon Lon only laments for the past and his former glories of high school football star and his old girlfriend. One wonders how Jon Lon expects to find “true love” if his definition involves atm, which Crews graphically describes in one of many vile, foul, and cruel sex scenes. So Jon Lon is stuck operating the liquor store once owned by his father and spends most of the day drinking and bitching at his wife. His father isn’t much different except that he bitches at his daughter since his wife killed herself years ago.
The whole book is foul and cruel. Foul because Crews revels in shock. Cruel because Crews casts a hateful eye on all his citizens and puts them through the wringer. Even Lottie Mae, the sole redeeming subplot in the entire novel, is brutalized, driven insane, and disturbed by snakes before she is able to exact an even crueler revenge.
Lottie Mae, a young black girl, is the object of the sheriff’s desire. The sheriff Buddy is a mangled man, a landlocked hillbilly pirate, I guess, with his peg leg. His real leg he lost in ‘Nam. Buddy, too, laments the past for he, too, was once a football star. Most of the male characters were. Now he occupies his time by carrying snakes, one in a sack and the other in his pants. Yes, that is a metaphor Crews pounds in your head, over and over. The phallic nature of snakes. The sexual connotation of Eve’s temptation, of the snake in the garden. And on and on.
I’m exaggerating somewhat, since the snake metaphor is one of the few things Crews deftly handles, despite the overkill. His similes and his prose, however, are dull, especially in the first half. Let me quote a little gem here describing Jon Lon’s wife: “Two inches below her navel her belly just leaped out in this absolutely unbelievable way.” Well, that’s absolutely unbelievable! But it gets better: “she looked like she was carrying a basketball under her dress.” A basketball, no kidding!
The dialogue, mostly in dialect, is authentic, though I questioned some of the intentional misspellings. And the prose does get better in the second half, lyrical at times, but he still stumbles over similes. With obvious imaginative powers, why does Crews stumble with similes?
Rereading what I wrote, I’m shocked I haven’t mentioned the violence. The book’s back cover notes that Crews covers the vices of “adultery, castration, suicide, and murder.” This list, of course, leaves out bullying, rape, drunkenness, drunken driving, fights, lies, animal brutality including mutilation and dog fighting, racism, sexism, abandonment, kidnapping, battered wives, neglected wives, paraphilia, madness, delusions, feces fascination, religion bashing, and idleness. All of which are ingredients for an instant cult classic!
But yes, there is a lot of violence, a lot of touting of masculinity and then more violence. One could posit that Crews argues against masculinity and its corrupting power, which is true. But Crews idealizes athleticism in a well-rendered scene of weight-lifting and dick-measuring, which in the south is how one determines the pecking order. The equivalent of dogs sniffing the other’s rectum.
Despite the Southern Gothic nature, it’s rather insulting for readers cite Crews alongside the masters Faulkner and O’Connor. Both incorporated humanity in their works, dealt with underlying problems in the south, and both, in the end, were redemptive, even if at times it was a freak show. Crews, however, is just a freak show. With the exception of Lottie Mae, who’s in so little of the book and so distant from the main thread, A Feast of Snakes has little value, which disappoints me since Crews does have intensity as a writer.
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