Getting Naked with Harry Crews: Interviews

by Harry Crews

26 interviews conducted between 1972 and 1997 with novelist Harry Crews (author of 23 books) who discusses writing, literary influences, his fascination with so-called freaks, love of blood sports,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813017092
• ISBN13: 9780813017099
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

It's like meeting the man himself

I got to work with Harry Crews at the UF MFA CW program before his retirement, and he is still a teacher whom I would gladly sit at the feet of and pay every respect to. And this collection of interviews gives one not just a biographic and historic perspective on Harry Crews by giving interviews through Crews' career to offer tidbits of his ideas and progress as he worked through novel after novel, but also provides a good view of the spirit of this man who is currently the last surviving member of the Great Triumvirate of Writers Who Should Be Dead But Aren't Yet (the two drop-outs being William S. Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson). Harry Crews is a wily, intelligent, thoughtful, wild and generous man. In his heyday, he seemed to have more notoriety for his personal antics than his writing (in the day of the Novelist, the wild character who happens to find some time somewhere to write). While others like Normal Mailer let their public personas take over and let the writing become dimmer and dimmer, Crews took the other route and focused more and more as a writer, another progress denoted in this set of interviews. But I am most impressed in this collection that Bledsoe edited and rummaged through most likely tons of interviews to find the ones that best presented the spirit of conversing with Harry Crews the man--sometimes rambling and repetitive, Crews is wonderful at talking himself towards great stories and nuggets of wisdom about the working of the world (including the realm of bloodsports) and, of course, invaluable advice about being a writer. Crews talks about writing as an effort of the soul, not just an act of making things up. The articles that are more summaries of interviews are not always as enlightening, but the classic Q & A structured interviews are wonderful here. Many kudos for Bledsoe for compiling some of the choicest bits of Crews that would be valuable for any budding writer.

Naked Means Honest

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

Watching Harry spin

I think that even someone who has not read any of Harry Crews could be fascinated by this collection of interviews. Crews, a self proclaimed redneck from rural Georgia, has over a thiry five year career published some of the finest fiction to come of out the south. But unlike the more typical genteel southern writers (Faulkner, Ransom, Tate, Lytle, Foote, Percy or Price for example)whose books, even when they deal with poverty and hard times, tend to a 'literary' language and an oblique view of the subject matter, Crews, in contrast, is confrontational, colloquial, profane, angry, violent, shocking, grotesque and really, really funny. His is a unique voice and perhaps an acquired taste, but no question that it is the real stuff.This book of interviews captures the writer (typically having just finished a project) at various stages in his publishing career from 1972 to 1997. To read all of these in one setting, as I did yesterday, is a bit much, because over the years some of the same questions (and answers) recur reqularly, so that it begins to seem a lot like a candidate's standard stump speech. One does see Crews presenting the same stock answers to questions about his use of 'freaks' in his stories, his favorite authors, the impact of drinking (and drugs) on his writing, and his specific writing habits. Still, each interview has at least one moment of unique insight and many are delightfully entertaining. Moments of pure Harry such as informing a female interviewer that despite being on the wagon his sexual powers have not deminished or, in another interview after speaking at length about being sober for a year, he downs several carafes of white wine because he doesn't really think it counts.Those who have read and enjoyed Crews should really get a lot of pleasure from the perspective that these interviews give us of his work. Those who haven't read him can get a real flavor for his attitute and language. What you can't get from this book is the flavor of that genius for character and story that is uniquely his