The Knockout Artist

Praise

“The Knockout Artist (1988) is a high point of the fruitful second chapter of Crews’s career… The Knockout Artist, for all of its grimness and horror, shows that he was still the sensitive boy from A Childhood, tenderly fascinated by the disfigurements that shape our fortunes.” —Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

“This was a movement for which I’m tempted to use a shorthand drawn from three of its best writers: Harry, Barry and Larry. I am talking about Harry Crews (1935-2012), Barry Hannah (1942-2010) and Larry Brown (1951-2004). They were at the vanguard of a genre sometimes referred to as Grit Lit, or Rough South.(…) They provided me, in a way more highbrow writers might not have, with core literary values. Among them: Dry is better than wet. Funny beats somber. Liberal (in the small “l” sense) is better than conservative. Writing about ordinary lives is, nine times out of 10, more valuable and more interesting than reading about cosseted or artistic ones.(…) Like the filmmaker Mike Leigh, Harry, Barry and Larry refused to condescend to working-class people. (…) They were in absolute sync with the world’s misfits, dissidents and jokers. All three had a mistrust of authority. Few writers have better lived up to Charlotte Brontë’s epic declaration in Jane Eyre: ‘I would always rather be happy than dignified.’” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times