Crane Eden

by Earl Conrad

Conrad, Earl, Crane Eden

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

American journalist and author with an interest in Hollywood and African-American issues.

Reviews

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those little gems that is indivisible from its time and place, all gloriously American, thus gloriously shitty; garishly countercultural, thus incredulously cosplaying; calculatingly shocking, thus anything but; etc. and on and on. But the damnedest thing? It works. Despite practically operating off the mid-century Writerly Checklist of ‘Transgressive’ Talking Point Taboos (as made canon and rolled into the shape of a huge dong stuffed down the front of his too-tight action slacks by Offender-In-Chief, Jerzy Kosinski), Earl Conrad was a genuinely hip motherfucker. His fading Hollywood action star is powers of 100 more charming and deplorable than Tarantino’s (who escapes charges of plagiarism by merit of my having never even heard him MENTION a book in thirty-five years of his liberal (read: compulsive) oversharing of anything greater than a yoctometer of ‘genius’ to his own asshole), the titular Eden’s fall from favor fleshed out in a slightly ‘groovy’ Polynesia that has all the authenticity of a 1950’s tiki party. Some genuinely fucked up shit happens, and I would insert trigger warnings if it all didn’t feel like plastic cocktail tumblers molded as an Easter Island head, a can of SPAM, and Le Sacre du Sauvage or The Voice of the Xtabay spinning on the outdoor, poolside hi-fi. But because I try very, very hard not to be a complete asshole, I will just say this by way of warning, rendered in my best Bryan Ferry in faux-Clouseau-cum-Dracula vocalese: “Sank Hey-vun For Lee-ttle Gurls.”

A must read for the literary debauchutante.