Safe Return Doubtful

Crews went through a prolific period of five years leading up to 1972, during which he wrote five novels, each a bit funnier, each a bit shorter, each more inventive, but each with less emotion than the previous.

This is a good example, the fifth of those five, as it has far less to it. It seems he was prepared to sacrifice bold experimental ideas in favour of more of a satirical comedic situation.

Compare it with the second of that five year period, Naked in the Garden Hills, which was a realistic and grotesque portrayal of a disintegrating American landscape and its immoral inhabitants. A more serious piece.

There are still Crews trademarks, but less of them. His earlier work was better, at least during this period. He went on, some years later, to produce his best work, with the likes of A Feast of Snakes. Here, Crews is more focused on sending up consumerism and the grip television was beginning to have on society.

This may well be the funniest of Crews’s books, but in its second half, the plot has nowhere to go, and it falls in on itself, with a degree of frustration.

Easy, and his three children Mister, Junell and Herman, own a 43 acre junkyard called Auto Town. Their lives are dominated by the automobile. When there is a wreck on the neighbouring highway Junell arrives to it in her huge tow truck, Big Mama, quicker than the ambulance does, in case there is competition for the ruined vehicles. Mister crushes the wrecks into suitcase sized lumps of metal.
Herman, jealous of the attention and to the embarrassment of the family, announces he wants to eat a Maverick, and attracts the attention of Mr Edge, the manager at the Hotel Sherman, who sees it as an opportunity to make money, and offers to host the event.

So much for the plot.. but what Crews does, which I need not tell any regular reader of his, is to produce surges of brilliance that completely captivate, and go to make him one of my favourite writers.
This may not be his best, but it is still damned good. The passage when Junell arrives with Big Mama at a 72 vehicle pile up on the ‘superhighway’ is Crews at his very best. While Junell cavorts with her lover, the ambulance driver, on the backseat, victims, and parts of victims, are being cut out of their vehicular tombs. It’s a scene of absolute horror, but with Crews’s touch, it is the very definition of black humour.

Here’s a clip from Herman’s attempt at eating the Maverick..

One of the reporters was sitting on the throne where Herman was going to pass every morning at nine-thirty. It was an elaborate structure, designed and fabricated by Mr. Edge’s own interior decorators. “Do you think the public is ready for this?” the reporter asked Mr. Edge. “Would you be surprised to know that I’m …” He glanced at Mister standing beside him… “that we’re negotiating to put it on nationwide TeeVee?” “Nationwide TeeVee?” asked the reporter. He whipped out a pad and wrote on it. The other reporters who had gathered close behind him wrote too. “Of course,” said Mr. Edge, “the immediate area—a three-hundred-mile radius or so—will be blacked out.” “Could you tell us about the negotiations?” “Only to say that we’re talking to all the networks.” Mr. Edge shrugged. “What the hell, I guess it’s all right to say that the network we’re closest with is ABC. They want it for their ‘Wide World of Sports.’” “And you think you can put this on national TeeVee?” The reporter howled like a dog, and dissolved in laughter. “Sponsored by Preparation H,” shouted another reporter. The reporter got off the throne and they all stood looking at it, while Mr. Edge talked. “It’s ingenious. American knowhow. You can see his head. These drapes will conceal his body. Here is where the Maverick drops. The audience can see it drop. But they can’t see him.” In exasperation he looked at the reporters, all of whom were scribbling furiously. “For God’s sake give us credit for a little class and a little taste. We wouldn’t show his rectum to an American audience.” “And now a special announcement. As you know, Herman Mack will eat for the first time this evening at six.” A roar of applause. “In the morning, the first half-ounce he passes at nine-thirty will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.” Mr. Edge paused. There was utter silence. He could hear the doctor shuffling around behind him. The audience sat stunned. Mr. Edge rushed on. “We have facilities here at the Hotel Sherman for melting down the half-ounce and casting it into the shape of a miniature Maverick-an absolute replica. And moreover, each subsequent half-ounce will be similarly melted and cast into small cars with a hole through the top suitable for wearing on your key chains. These small cars will be sold at twelve dollars and fifty cents each plus state sales tax on a first come first served basis.”

My GoodReads score 4 / 5