dave weil wrote:

On Thu, 19 May 2005 17:58:25 -0400, Howard Ferstler
wrote:

The writer Harry Crews published a novel years ago entitled
The Gospel Singer. It is about an Elmer Gantry style con
artist who eventually becomes guilt ridden and stands up in
front of his very rough, emotional and country red-neck
congregation and confesses that he has been feeding them a
bunch of claptrap for years. The congregation rises out of
its collective seats and kills the guy right up there at the
front of the church.

He also published Body, which showed how pride comes before a fall.
The only difference between you and the protagonist is that the
protagonist was a female bodybuilder and you are the figurative 98 lb.
weakness.

You want to read some really rough Crews? Try Feast of
Snakes.

Have you ever met Crews? I took a course from him at the
junior college in Broward County before he published his
first novel. During that time, I spent time in his office
talking to him about a variety of subjects. (No doubt, he
has completely forgotten the encounter.) Anyway, the guy
looked like he could fold over a telephone pole and wrap it
around a house. He once got mad at a student who was
mouthing off in class and I really thought that Crews was
going to reach out and physically destroy the guy. (Crews
also was a martial arts enthusiast.) Later on, when he had
published several more novels and I had long departed from
Broward County and he had moved on to the University of
Florida to teach creative writing, I saw a picture of him
and he looked downright dangerous. I am not kidding. I mean
he looked lethal. This was not a guy anybody would want to
cross. One writer who interviewed him said that when he
first met Crews he was actually scared of him.

BTW, your fellow Gainesvillian is a GREAT writer with a very muscular
style. Unlike you, sadly.

I am not in Gainseville and did not even go to school there,
but I will agree that he is a great writer. I mean, he is
modern America's philosophical red-neck version of
Dostoyevsky. Did you ever get a chance to read some of his
short material when it was published in Esquire? It drove
some of those Yankee liberals who read the magazine crazy.
Incidentally, I have an autographed copy of his book,
Florida Frenzy.

Incidentally, it is pointless to compare an accomplished
novelist and short-story writers with somebody who writes
books and articles dealing with a small-scale hobby like
audio. I would imagine that Crews would consider anyone who
is all wrapped up in audio (including me) as a time-wasting
wimp.

Howard Ferstler