48. A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews

I consider this paperback to be a pretty nice little find.  I had read this a long time ago, it was all the rage amongst a group of friends I was hanging with in the 90s.  They were all about alternative culture, zines and all that and I remember this one being a big deal.  I see on the wikipedia page that Crews was trendy among the 90s hipsters like Sonic Youth and Madonna.  I can definitely say this book is very readable, though it's not my jam.  There is too much cruelty to animals and just gross stuff.  I am trying to supress a slight contempt, as my understanding is that Crews was the real deal. It just feels like there is a deliberate attempt to be over the top, to write something that would get urban 90s hipsters in their early thirties all excited.  As an old hardboiled head, I feel a slightly smug superiority from some of the equally hardcore, but less over the top and perhaps therefore more impactful, books of the decades before.

That being said, the setup in A Feast of Snakes is pretty wild and creative.  The snake theme is everywhere and well thought out.  The description of the town and its big snake festival is richly painted.  The characters are all interesting and the writing is compelling.  I just don't really get what it is all in aid of.  The passage where they bully Poncy, the fat old ex-salesman with a Spanish name and background, feels gratuitous and somewhat forced.  Let's make a weaker person party super hard and make him shit his pants!  Even when I get beyond how much of this is an accurate portrayal of the extremes of redneck life in small-town Georgia, I still don't really understand why we care.  If it is just a creative portrayal of a pretty wild location, then as that it succeeds and is entertaining.  I'm not sure what the narrative and internal dialogue of the protagonist, Joe Lon Mackey, tortured ex-football star, is supposed to tell us about life or anything.  The ending especially feels like a simplistic resolution to the typical depression/anxiety of the redneck living in a double-wide who beats his wife and realizes nothing will ever change.

So I have lots of criticisms, but if you can stand a little excess and grossness and cruelty and may even be down for some of that, this is a really quick and fun read.