Getting Naked with Harry Crews
Interviews
Edited
by Erik Bledsoe
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Read the interview with Erik
Bledsoe
In 26 interviews
conducted between 1972 and 1997, novelist Harry Crews
tells the truth--about why and how he writes, about the
literary influences on his own work, about the writers he
admires (or does not), about which of his own books he
likes (or does not), about his fascination with so-called
freaks, and about his love of blood sports. Crews reveals
the tender side under his tough-guy image, discussing his
beloved mother and his spiritual quest in a secular
world. Crews also speaks frankly about his failed
relationships, the role that writing played in them, and
his personal struggles with alcohol and drugs and their
impact on his life and work. Those seeking insights into
his work will find them in these interviews. Those
seeking to be entertained in Crewsian fashion will not be
disappointed.
Harry Crews on his tattoo and mohawk . . .
"If you can’t get past my ‘too’--my
tattoo--and my ‘do’--the way I got my hair
cut--it’s only because you have decided there are
certain things that can be done with hair and certain
things that cannot be done with hair. And certain of them
are right and proper and decent, and the rest indicate a
warped, degenerate nature; therefore I am warped and
degenerate. Cause I got my hair cut a different way, man?
You gonna really live your life like that? What’s
wrong with you?"
On advice to young writers . . .
"You have to go to considerable
trouble to live differently from the way the world wants
you to live. That’s what I’ve discovered about
writing. The world doesn’t want you to do a damn
thing. If you wait till you got time to write a novel or
time to write a story or time to read the hundred
thousands of books you should have already read--if you
wait for the time, you’ll never do it. Cause there
ain’t no time; world don’t want you to do that.
World wants you to go to the zoo and eat cotton candy,
preferably seven days a week."
On being "well-rounded" . . .
"I never wanted to be well-rounded, and I do not
admire well-rounded people nor their work. So far as I
can see, nothing good in the world has ever been done by
well-rounded people. The good work is done by people with
jagged, broken edges, because those edges cut things and
leave an imprint, a design."
Harry Crews is the author of 23 books, including The
Gospel Singer, Naked in Garden Hills, This Thing
Don’t Lead to Heaven, Karate Is a Thing of the
Spirit, Car, The Hawk Is Dying, The Gypsy’s Curse, A
Feast of Snakes, A Childhood: The Biography of a Place,
Blood and Grits, The Enthusiast, All We Need of Hell, The
Knockout Artist, Body, Scar Lover, The Mulching of
America, Celebration, and Florida Frenzy
(UPF, 1982).
Erik Bledsoe is an instructor of English and American
studies at the University of Tennessee. He has published
articles on southern writers and edited a special issue
of the Southern Quarterly devoted to Crews. His
1997 interview with Harry Crews from that magazine is
included in this collection.
1999. 376pp. 6 X 9.
ISBN 0-8130-1709-2 Cloth, $24.95
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"These conversations are full of gems that reveal Crews' tenacious commitment to the writing life."--
Chicago Tribune
"Even for non-fans, this collection of interviews is a wonderful source for any serious writer. It is a genuinely breathtaking look at the genesis, development, habits, and obstacles to becoming a great writer.
Getting Naked with Harry Crews should be on every writer's shelf. Bledsoe has done a service to students of Southern and Georgia literature by providing a truly remarkable edited work on one of the region's most engaging characters. The book shows how arduous a task becoming a good writer is, all the while providing hope and a realistic sketch of one amazing man with an enduring voice."--Georgia Library Quarterly
"Harry
Crews cannot refrain from storytelling. These
conversations are blessed with countless insights into
the creative process, fresh takes on old questions, and
always, Crews’s stories: modern-day parables that
tell us how it is to live, to work, and to hurt."--Jeff
Baker, Oxford American
"Harry Crews has indelible ways of approaching life
and the craft of writing. This collection shows that he
elevates both to a near-religious artform."--Matthew
Teague, Oxford American
Harry Crews on getting naked:
"If you’re gonna write, for God in
heaven’s sake try to get naked. Try to write the
truth. Try to get underneath all the sham, all the
excuses, all the lies that you’ve been told. . . .
If you’re gonna write fiction, you have to get right
on down to it."
Titles of
Related Interest:
Kick Ass,
Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen,
by Carl Hiaasen, edited by Diane Stevenson
Surrounded on Three Sides,
by John Keasler
Sunshine States,
Wild Times and Extraordinary Lives in the Land of Gators,
Guns, and Grapefruit,
by Patrick Carr
Some Kind of Paradise,
A Chronicle of Man and the Land in Florida,
by Mark Derr
Click here for
our list of Florida titles
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