The poor town of Enigma, Georgia awaits the return of its most famous son - the Gospel Singer. With the voice of an angel and, it is said, the touch of a healer, he is fresh from the cover of LIFE and the cheers of the Carnegie Hall crowd. And yet, for all his fame, something drives him back to his obscure past, to small-town idolization and half-forgotten deeds. There, before the crowds that have gathered at his feet, he will reveal the cruelty at the heart of his act ... The Gospel Singer, Harry Crews' extraordinary debut novel, is at once a surreal investigation into the nature of the American South, as well as an intricate mediation on faith and its place in the community.

1935, Bacon County, Georgia. The bite of the Great Depression was beginning to be felt in the rest of America, but its teeth had been in Bacon County for years. Here one of America's most original storytellers, Harry Crews, was born in a sharecropper's cabin at the end of a dirt road. A Childhood is his memoir of that time - his first years of life - and that place: the poor soil and the sickness, the blood feuds and the faith healers, the ghosts and the shopping catalogues. A profound vision of the rural South that resounds with the violence of poverty and the tenderness of kinship, A Childhood is a true American classic.

Now from the author the Washington Post Book World calls "the dark chronicler of human vanity and folly" comes Celebration. The newest black comedy from Harry Crews is a biting, brilliant commentary set in a Florida rest-home gulag where the over-sixty-five set checks its dignity, self-esteem, and social security numbers at the door.

Forever and Forever is the aptly named retreat, populated by a motley crew of forgotten wives and ruined men who are waiting for death while working on their tans. The leader of this group is Stump, whose lost arm paid for Forever and Forever, and who believes the silent desperation that infuses the trailer park masks the fact that Forever and Forever is truly a small piece of hell on earth.

This ironic silence is shattered by the entrance of a beautiful young bombshell. Too Much is her name, and that is exactly what she is. This walking bonfire awakens long dead appetites in the inhabitants of Forever and Forever, reminding them of what they once were and can be again -- alive.

From the acclaimed author of such novels as "Blood and Grits" and "Childhood" comes a wildly weird and breathtakingly original visit to the rural South that reveals the exotic subculture that erupts in all its glory at the Rattlesnake Roundup in Mystic, Georgia. "No number of adjectives in the thesaurus can do full justice to the dazzlingly bizarre nature of Crews' creations".--"Washington Post Book World".

Harry Crews turns the classic rags-to-riches story on its head in this hilarious saga of the trials and tribulations of a beleaguered salesman. "An over-the-top comedy in which the veteran wild man of redneck fiction casts his satirical eye on the all-American world of door-to-door sales".--Kirkus Reviews.

From Simon & Schuster, Classic Crews is a collection of works from the master Harry Crews, including his memoir and short stories. Collected here is the best of Harry Crews: his astoundingly beautiful memoir A Childhood: The Biography of a Place; two if his most memorable novels, Car and The Gypsy's Curse; and three masterly essays, Climbing the Tower, The Car, and Fathers, Sons and Blood, as well as a new introduction to these works by Crews himself.

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.