Books in Brief: A Feast of Snakes

A Feast of Snakes, by Harry Crews (Atheneum, 177 pp., $7.95). If the essence of this novel had been distilled and sprayed over the East and West Coast voting populace, with additional heavy dustings above certain Midwestern centers, Jimmy Carter wouldn’t have stood a chance of copping the presidential gonfalon. For what Mr. Crews has done is to gargantuanize every fetid nightmare non-Southerners have about the ways of their crazed brethren below the ole Mason-Dixon line. Nouveau-South mutterings wouldn’t last two rounds with Crews, who writes from a truly grotesque Southern Gothic vision. He populates the fictional town of Mystic, Ga. with characters that seem harmless enough: huge, illiterate football players; shuffling, moonshine-drinking blacks; gorgeous, nymphomaniac cheerleaders. He creates Mystic, Georgia’s Annual Rattlesnake Roundup, from which he proceeds to flog every bit of snake imagery possible. Snake bearers and snake hunters collide and in many demonic scenes debate the proposition: Resolved, the right guys won the Civil War.

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Michael C. Brown

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A Feast of Snakes, by Harry Crews (Atheneum, 177 pp., $7.95). If the essence of this novel had been distilled and sprayed over the East and West Coast voting populace, with additional heavy dustings above certain Midwestern centers, Jimmy Carter wouldn’t have stood a chance of copping the presidential gonfalon. For what Mr. Crews has done is to gargantuanize every fetid nightmare non-Southerners have about the ways of their crazed brethren below the ole Mason-Dixon line. Nouveau-South mutterings wouldn’t last two rounds with Crews, who writes from a truly grotesque Southern Gothic vision. He populates the fictional town of Mystic, Ga. with characters that seem harmless enough: huge, illiterate football players; shuffling, moonshine-drinking blacks; gorgeous, nymphomaniac cheerleaders. He creates Mystic, Georgia’s Annual Rattlesnake Roundup, from which he proceeds to flog every bit of snake imagery possible. Snake bearers and snake hunters collide and in many demonic scenes debate the proposition: Resolved, the right guys won the Civil War.