Whats impressive about A Childhood is not how it faithfully documents the past. Its how, through stories, it grants some coherence to an otherwise rootless existence. Writing, Crews seemed to believe, was a thread through the maze, a means of imagining a place and a people to whom he could lay claim. Charlie Lee, Harper's
Reading Crews, I found the courage to tell the stories Id been amassing my whole life. Mary Karr
This memoir is for everyone. Its agile, honest and built as if to last. Like its author, its a resilient American original. Dwight Garner, The New York Times
the memoir is flawless, one of the finest ever written by an American.[ it] answers some specific questions, namely where its author came from and how he became a writer, but it asks broader ones, too: why anyone becomes anything, how we square our pasts with our futures, and why certain thingsa book, its authorare rescued from oblivion. Casey Cep, The New Yorker
Critics and awards anoint some authors as legends. Others depend on word-of-mouth and prose that stands the test of time.There is nothing folksy, never mind pastoral or genteel, about Crews. With caustic and fabulist writing, he exhumed the ghosts of Americas original sin..Crews captured the raw essence of humanity in both fiction and nonfiction. Side by side, these reissues form the complete picture of an imperfect man who charged hard into extremes to escape his cultural inheritance. Lauren Leblanc, Los Angeles Times
Of all of Crews magnificent output, it is A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, first published in 1978 that is the most memorable and is written in a language that will sear the mind and memory. There are startlingly wild scenes written with hair raising power.This review cannot begin to capture the power of the writing of Harry Crews nor the essence of this portrait of the life of a sharecropping family in the Great Depression. All that can be said is, read it. The power of the written word will never be made more clear. New York Journal of Books
