"Fourteen essays and articles and three short stories that will hit you right between the eyes. Crews writing is informed by a deep love of language, literature, nature, blood sports, and his own kind of people—namely rural, southern, hard-drinking, honest-measure hell-raisers. We are all lucky to have him to tell us about cockfighting, dogfighting, mending an injured hawk, becoming a great jockey, poaching gators, and taking ourselves much too seriously"— Chicago Tribune "The author’s gifts include an elegant and easy style, a knack for telling a good story, and a wry and riotous sense of humor... Unforgettable characters whose preoccupations evoke such memorable detail. Despite the concreteness of his descriptions, his sports cronies and the bar rats he encounters take on a universality in his graceful prose."— Newsday In this collection of fiction and essays, Crews focuses on the people and places of Florida—full of natural wonders and other, grimier delights that make perfect grist for his forceful style, Southern Gothic sensibilities, and rowdy sense of humor. From poaching gators, to the Gatornationals, to cockfighting—a must-have collection for Harry Crews fans new and old.
Author
Harry Eugene Crews was born during the Great Depression to sharecroppers in Bacon County, Georgia. His father died when he was an infant and his mother quickly remarried. His mother later moved her sons to Jacksonville, Florida. Crews is twice divorced and is the father of two sons. His eldest son drowned in 1964. Crews served in the Korean War and, following the war, enrolled at the University of Florida under the G.I. Bill. After two years of school, Crews set out on an extended road trip. He returned to the University of Florida in 1958. Later, after graduating from the master's program, Crews was denied entrance to the graduate program for Creative Writing. He moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where he taught English at Broward Community College. In 1968, Crews' first novel, The Gospel Singer, was published. Crews returned to the University of Florida as an English faculty member. In spring of 1997, Crews retired from UF to devote himself fully to writing. Crews published continuously since his first novel, on average of one novel per year. He died in 2012, at the age of 78.
