A Childhood
The Biography of a Place
(Author) Harry Crews“One of the Finest Memoirs Ever Written” –The New Yorker “A Childhood has been widely recognized as a masterpiece, a Dickensian document of survival and blight in Depression-era Georgia.” –Harper’s The highly acclaimed memoir of one of the most original American storytellers of the rural South A Penguin Classic Harry Crews grew up as the son of a sharecropper in Georgia at a time when “the rest of the country was just beginning to feel the real hurt of the Great Depression but it had been living in Bacon County for years.” Yet what he conveys in this moving, brutal autobiography of his first six years of life is an elegiac sense of community and roots from a rural South that had rarely been represented in this way. Interweaving his own memories including his bout with polio and a fascination with the Sears, Roebuck catalog, with the tales of relatives and friends, he re-creates a childhood of tenderness and violence, comedy and tragedy.
Harry Crews
Harry Crews (1935-2012) was an American novelist and playwright known for his gritty, Southern Gothic style and darkly humorous exploration of the human condition. His most notable works include "A Feast of Snakes," "The Gospel Singer," and "The Knockout Artist." Crews' writing often delved into themes of poverty, violence, and eccentricity, drawing on his own tumultuous upbringing in rural Georgia. His raw and visceral prose left a lasting impact on the Southern Gothic genre, influencing writers such as Cormac McCarthy and Barry Hannah. Crews' most famous work is arguably "A Childhood: The Biography of a Place," a memoir that vividly captures his tumultuous childhood and serves as a cornerstone of his literary legacy.