The Gospel Singer and Where Does One Go When There's No Place to Go?

by Harry Crews

To the dirt poor town of Enigma, Georgia, a local farm boy returns as a prosperous faith healer. Though the townsfolk give way to a mindless idolization, the Gospel Singer is tormented by the extent of his deception and is forced to admit his corrupt activities.

Genres: Fiction, Southern Gothic, Southern, Classics, Novels, Horror, Gothic

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Harry Eugene Crews was born during the Great Depression to sharecroppers in Bacon County, Georgia. His father died when he was an infant and his mother quickly remarried. His mother later moved her sons to Jacksonville, Florida. Crews is twice divorced and is the father of two sons. His eldest son drowned in 1964.

Crews served in the Korean War and, following the war, enrolled at the University of Florida under the G.I. Bill. After two years of school, Crews set out on an extended road trip. He returned to the University of Florida in 1958. Later, after graduating from the master's program, Crews was denied entrance to the graduate program for Creative Writing. He moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where he taught English at Broward Community College. In 1968, Crews' first novel, The Gospel Singer, was published. Crews returned to the University of Florida as an English faculty member.

In spring of 1997, Crews retired from UF to devote himself fully to writing. Crews published continuously since his first novel, on average of one novel per year. He died in 2012, at the age of 78.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book! It's one of those books that I would use some caution as to whom I may recommend. Ummm, I probably missed something but I never saw "that" ending coming. Crews is an amazing writer and exposes you to some interesting (to put it mildly) characters. I think I was expecting less from Crews because it was his debut novel, however I was completely blown away and should have never passed that judgement. "Judgement".....hmmm that could be the word to explain(if it can be explained) this entire book.

No less stars the second time around. I like the strange and the unexplainable, it seems.

[Zoeytron · Rating 3 out of 5]

My history with Harry Crews is checkered.  Loved his memoir telling of his childhood, but could not stomach A Feast of Snakes.  After reading a couple of GR friends' reviews of The Gospel Singer, I decided to give him another try.  Nothing about it was easy.   

First of all, the font used in this small hardcover book was almost too small for me to read.  The binding was poorly done, and made it difficult to see the full left-hand side page to read without breaking the spine.  There was no dust jacket, but someone had carefully cut the front cover from a paperback edition of the book and glued it on the outside.  This last, at least, did not make the book more difficult to read.  

One of my GR buddies referred to this genre as Southern grotesque and I fully agree.  It goes past dirty and gritty, that's for sure.  Religious fanaticism is rampant.  As a popular TV evangelist sets up his tent show that will feature the Gospel Singer, a freak show follows close on his heels.  There are some fine reviews posted if you want to know more about the plot.  Me, my very own personal bad self, I am calling it quits with Crews.  Not a good fit.

Do any of you remember those hand fans that churches and funeral homes used to have?  There is a picture of Jesus (usually praying) on the fan part which is glued to a large Popsicle stick.  They were stuck into the hymnal holders on the backs of the church pews.  Anyway, in the story there is a woman fanning the flies away from her murdered daughter's dead body in the funeral home and ends up mashing one with the fan, then scraping the fly corpse off of Jesus' face with her yellowed fingernail.  Can't get it out of my mind.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fabulous but really quite insane novel about a guy who lives in the South of the USA and has a golden voice which he puts to good use doing the Lord's work. Well, yeah, that's a little tiny part of the story. The rest is pure mayhem, people doing dreadful things to each other and what's worse, to animals too, there ought to be a law. Although the way Harry Crews tells it, down there it's illegal NOT to do these things. Which I am not about to describe cause you may be at work reading this and your colleague may be looking idly at your screen and should I be typing up some of the stuff in these pages, that colleague will surely never say yes if you ask him or her out for a Bacardi Breezer next Saturday. He or she will think you're a tragic weirdo, and however much you say "it's just a book review site", your moment will have gone forever and word will go round your office like wildfire.

So I'm not going to describe any of the things that happen in this novel.

But it does contain amidst the wreckage a very profound truth about Elvis Presley, the obvious real world version of The Gospel Singer in the novel. It's along the lines that people began to think Elvis was a kind of magical being with special powers, and he couldn't stop them thinking and feeling that, and the intensity of their projections on him actually did make a kind of shared hallucinatory magic, and he couldn't control it. He made the amber and he was the fly that got stuck in it. It makes the argument that Elvis (who I stress is not named in this novel nor alluded to, this is a book about a gospel singer and Elvis only sang gospel on two albums) was engaged in this hideous inner conflict with himself, his power, his talent, his popularity – that he could see clearly that it could be a terrible murderous thing and that’s why he buried himself for ten of his prime years, and that’s why he self-destructed and died aged 42. I think it’s a theory with a great deal of merit – you could write a thick long list of the stuff Elvis SHOULD have done, and COULD SO VERY EASILY have done in those crap years from 1960 to 1967 and he did nary a one of them. The Colonel Tom Parker Brainwashed the Poor Ignorant Bastard theory is quite funny but hardly credible. Elvis could have crushed the Colonel with the raising of his left eyebrow.
So anyway, Harry Crews is a crazy guy and this was a novel which twanged round my head for months. Still does. I wanna reread it!
Also - what a cover.

[עצוב שיכור · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh look, two stars!

Alright, so it seems like I'm the odd one out here because everyone else appears to be head over heels for "The Gospel Singer." For me, reading this short book felt like trudging through the Bible...no offense to the Bible, of course. The style was slower than a snail on a leisurely stroll, and I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open. The story revolves around a gospel singer who's basically the Taylor Swift of his small hometown. Being the local celebrity, he pretty much sleeps with any swiftie who catches his eye. Well, one of his conquests ends up murdered, and when he returns to town, people start thinking he's some kind of miracle worker, but clearly, he's not. All he does is belt out some "alleluias" and "oh lord, save us," which, apparently, is enough to get him lynched in the end because he goes "Oi, I'm no fucking Sai Baba!" and everybody's like "Oh? LET'S FUCK HIM UP THEN!" And that's your plot twist. So, the bottom line is, he dies, hanged or summat, aye. And that's a wrap on this literary masterpiece. I give it a solid 1.5 stars, but I'll round it up to 2 because, hey, I'm super-nice and I'm only looking for love.

NEXT!

[Diane Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I need a brain cleanse after reading this.

Remember Oral Roberts? A TV evangelist who healed the sick, made cripples walk again, made the blind see and the deaf hear, all by laying his hands on them and calling on the power of the Lord. He had a TV show called The Hour of Power, his believers packed huge arenas to watch these miracles and incidentally, to donate money. My own grandmother sent in $5.00 of her hoarded money (a lot in 1959) for a handkerchief "blessed" by Oral Roberts. He finally went too far in the late nineties by claiming that God would take him home if his followers didn't send money to save him. That pretty much bombed, he faded from public view, and the Lord did indeed take him home in 2009. He was a sham and a fake and made millions off of the poor people who idolized and believed in him. There are a lot of hypocritical religious types doing the same thing these days, (remember Jim Jones?) and a few politicians I could name as well. All making money from those who think they are some sort of saviors.

That is all I could think of while reading this book. Blind adoration of men who deserve exactly what our unnamed Gospel Singer got by the end of this book. I don't know if Harry Crews was trying to make some sort of statement about religious hypocrisy or dumb white southerners or just telling a story that Flannery O'Connor would have been proud of, maybe all three. It was his first novel, so who knows? I only got through it by reading it as humor and satire. Crews can write for sure, but his subject matter is disturbing.

[Camie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great precautionary tale about The Gospel Singer , who with both physical beauty and the grandeur of his voice is able to rise high above the status of his poor pig farming past. But there is trouble looming when after becoming wildly famous he returns to his hometown and people have come to expect miracles and healing from him. A case where the illusion is far different than the man, and he knows and suffers for it. Third and best book yet I've read by Harry Crews.

[Sleepy Boy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actions have consequences & the snake eats its tail.

[Andy Weston · Rating 5 out of 5]

These days Crews’s influence on storytelling is more widely acknowledged than when he was alive. It may seem surprising for a middle aged white man whose work is fraught with racism and a masculinity so toxic it sometime bypasses misogyny and goes straight into violence.
During his life (1935-2012) Crews witnessed the South’s shift from a rural society to a cosmopolitan one marked by the civil rights movement. Along with that views on Southern literature have changed also. O’Connor, Welty, Caldwell, McCullers, once seen as eccentric outsiders are now revered as writers reflecting diversity. Crews writing is now seen as genuine, almost a part of history that may not generate pride, but at least is honest.

Typically Crews, here we have a travelling freak show, pigs roaming around the interior of homes, and broken countryfolk with huge heads, skin disease and missing legs.
The Gospel Singer, a man with a beautiful voice, rumoured to be able to heal the sick, but actually a sex addict, is reluctantly returning to his socially deprived home town, Enigma. He is followed, always, by a Freak Fair, run by a man called Foot, due to his one 27 inch foot, though he may be the sanest character in the novel.

It begins in a jail cell, where Willalee Bookatee Hull, an African American and preacher, is being held for the rape and murder of the Gospel Singer’s supposed bride to be, Mary-Bell Carter, who has been stabbed 61 times with an ice pick.

This is a chaotic and violent novel, and all the better for it. Crews’s writing is so spiky and precise that the images it conjures up are some you’d rather not see. He wrestles with issues of race, gender, religion and class then stretches them to breaking point. This is a great example of his work, the masses that have assembled to be saved by the Gospel Singer are whipped into such a state of frenzy the novel seems to be headed for one hell of a finale. And Crews delivers.

Here’s a clip as we first meet the famous songster..

The Cadillac was vast, domed, vaulted and trussed, specially built by Detroit to the Gospel Singer's own specifications, but costing as much as Detroit cared to make it cost, expense being no consideration with the Gospel Singer because he consistently made more money during any given year than he was able to spend. The interior was deep savage red: the seats and headliner formed in heavy leather; the floor padded in spongy carpet. A pale mauve light-indirect, as though emanating from the passengers themselves-lit up the Gospel Singer in the back seat where he lolled, long-jointed and beautiful under his incredible head of yellow girl's hair, and lit up Didymus-manager, chauffeur and confessor to the Gospel Singer-where he sat, narrow-faced and nicotine-stained, rigid in his dark blue businessman's suit. He turned to look over his shoulder at the Gospel Singer, his mouth like the blade of a hatchet. He wore a clerical collar.

[Charles White · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to think FEAST OF SNAKES was his best novel. I don't think that anymore.

[Judi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Southern Grotesque gem has all the elements needed to qualify for my "favorites" list. A miserable, poor, small, rustic southern town as the setting. Enigma, Georgia. Couldn't have a better name. A gifted, handsome singer from modest Enigma roots. The Gospel Singer. His fame and reputation are beyond imagining, in an Elvis Presley sort of way. Beyond even his own imagining. The story wends it's way around his reluctant revisit to his hometown for a performance. The icing on the cake in this tale is that The Gospel Singer is being followed around on his singing tours by a Freak Show that benefits from the crowds drawn by the singer. The downside of The Gospel Singer by Harry Crews is that it is difficult and pricey to find a copy of this book. It is worth the search and price though.

[Neil Jefferies · Rating 4 out of 5]

*author names characters Gerd, Mirst, Avel, Didymus and Foot*
Me: 🤤🤤🤤

[David Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a rush!! Early contender for book of the summer, 2022.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is something about the book that didn't quite grab me. This is Harry Crews first novel, and it's something of a mix between Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. I felt like I had read this story before. If I wasn't so lazy I'd add the edition that I read, and put up the lurid 1968 mass market cover on it which looks like something a romance novel would have on it. The cover says it's a torrid novel, and the in big letters on the back the word SEX is written, with And Salvation a bit smaller. This book was obviously being sold as a cheap read, and maybe it's reading the book in this format instead of with the dark cover I see above these words for a later edition that makes me not able to stop thinking of the book as a pulp, sex and violence version of Faulkner, sort of like when Faulkner attempted to dive into the cheap thrills market with Soldier's Pay. Knowing that Crews later became a respected writer adds something to the quality of this book, but I'm not sure if I would think much of it if I didn't already have his name attached to it. Lots of sex is mentioned (not actually written about as it's happening), freaks, violence and degenerate backwoods Southerns. A fun read but too close to the cookie cutter form of the lurid pulp novel to make it much more than fun for me.

[Eric Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful sad, funny, fascinating book. I always associate it with Flannery O' Conner's Wise Blood, another of my favorites.

[Lena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to read everything he has touched

[Ryan E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty crazy book , good read probably won’t read it agin for a while. Might tell my wife about it sometime.
4 stars

[Michael Whitaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a lot of Harry Crews. I started with "Celebration" and I loved it. I had never read anything so wildly Southern and strange. I knew I had to trace him down, finding used copies wherever I could. Since then, there's been plenty of disappointments, but this morning, finishing "The Gospel Singer," I know Crews will always be near the top of my list of favorite authors. God rest his soul.

I don't even know what to write in my review without giving spoilers. Suffice it to say, The Gospel Singer has left Enigma, GA for a life of luxury and silk drawers and nice hotels and hot, hot women and he can't stop coming back to the sick, strange place from whence he came.

He is plagued by sexuality and self doubt and sickened by all those that love him so much, especially those from his hometown, those that want his touch, his healing, his voice to bring them salvation.

He can't meet their expectation. Or can he?

One of my favorite scene's in the book takes place in the funeral parlor where the keeper's daughter is blind and is under the impression from her father that if she touches the Gospel Singer's face and truly believes she will see again, she will, in fact, see. She's heard her whole life how beautiful he is, how perfect he is, how he is God-in-flesh-in-Enigma. She pinches his face, pulls his cheeks, hurts him, and says, more or less, he aint nothin special. And yet, they have this moment. While the Gospel Singer is struggling with his morality and the girl is struggling with her blindness and accused lack of faith, the girl says "It's awful hard to believe... You don't know how to try." It's the perfect picture. The Gospel Singer, sinner of all long blond haired, honey-voiced, Caddilac escorted sinners, wants to be something else. He wants to believe in God as more than some silly superstition. He wants to behave. He wants to be good. He wants to do something more for the swarms of people that look to him. But he doesn't know how. He is what he is and he's likely to be doing the no-pants dance with any woman who has a religious experience at his show.

How do we try? Is it even worth while?

To me, that's the crux of this story. What good is trying to be good? No one is good at it. The little blind girl can't even be kind about it, pinching the Gospel Singer's face. She says he's more ordinary than anything else.

We're all so ordinary.

There's a lot to love about this story and, with time, and another reading which I am sure I'll do, this may become one of my favorite novels. There's mania. The dependency. The town of Enigma and the world as a whole latching on to whatever salvation that comes their way. The zeal.

And I haven't even mentioned the freak show, Foot and his namesake. I haven't mentioned Didymus and his Dream Book. I haven't mentioned the ghost that haunts the Gospel Singer, a white man who hounds him for healing, wasting away in his clothes, his skin somehow black. I haven't mentioned the Gospel Singer's parents who light their million dollar homes with lamps and remove the fuses when he's gone. They just like to see him plug them back in and oooh and aaah when the lights come on. I haven't mentioned the brothers and sisters. I haven't mentioned Willalee Bookatee or MaryBell Carter. I haven't mentioned the completely off the walls, bonkers out of this world CHURCH they founded. I haven't mentioned much.

In a lot of ways, this story reminds me of "Celebration." The tent revival brings to mind the maypole.

No one catches fervor the way Harry Crews does.

And anyone that uses the line "she smelled like something shot in the woods" will keep me combing through uses bookstores for any old thing I can find.

[lids :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

omg this book............. even crews' most depraved descriptions are so fucking beautiful!!!!! i want to throw up i love it. this is how southern gothic should always be

[Kate Garvie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a literary snob so I'm rating it high, and I finished it interested enough to want to read more Harry Crews' books.
American Grotesque - a genre I have now discovered (as I was only familiar with American Gothic, and need to explore to find the difference).
Great descriptive writing, not overblown: the narrative throws you straight into the despairing lives of the poor South. It's an attack on American Episcopalean, the hypocrisy of religion. Is the Gospel Singer, the man - a simple metaphor for Jesus - or is that too simplistic? Who cares: this book would be fun to take apart and explore in any English Lit seminar.
Read this and then read Geek Love (K Dunn) or And the Ass Saw the Angel (N Cave) - they will stay in your heads for ever.

[Hal Brodsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harry Crews's books seem to get better with each reading. Perhaps this is because the reader can stop following the bizarre twists and turns of the plot line and focus on and appreciate the craftsmanship of the writing itself.
The Gospel Singer is Crews's first book, and the story of the return to Enigma,Georgia (the little town in the swamp where the highway suddenly ends) of the town's favorite son, a sinning, womanizing singer of gospel songs who the townspeople believe can cure the sick and perhaps even raise the dead, starting with the recently murdered girlfriend of the Gospel Singer who is embalmed and laying in wait in the town funeral parlor.
Meanwhile, The Gospel Singer's siblings have their own plots to escape Enigma, and a carnival of side show freaks is hot on his trail.
My only complaint with the book is it's typical Harry Crews ending which, while climactic, final and memorable, resolves the tale for the characters without allowing them to grow and resolve their problems.

[Luke Pajowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's Enigma, Georgia. The first stop in Crews Country. A place where people are so desperate to believe in miracles that they infuse all their hopes into The Gospel Singer. This book had an unforgettable ending that I was not expecting.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

"She did not need to be justified by god. She justified herself."

Read as a last recommendation from a friend and mentor.
Just as good as any recommendations previous. Thanks Alex

[holden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sitting on a 3 until the last 20 pages. this is the 2nd Crews book in a row that I’ve read with an ending that hits you like a baseball bat to the face. onto Body, I go.

[Iván · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Tenga en cuenta que todo hombre es inventor del mundo y justifica todo lo que hay en él mediante el milagro de sí mismo, de la misma forma que todo hombre está convencido de que su nombre aparece el primero en la lista para entrar al cielo.”

The Gospel Singer se sitúa en la encrucijada entre The Violent Bear it Away y The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Sigue al primero en su religiosidad grotesca y espíritu antipastoral, y al segundo en su belleza residual y su afán por entender los mecanismos de la mentalidad sureña. En principio, los caminos que Crews atraviesa para presentarnos la historia del cantante de gospel no parecen desviarse mucho de la idiosincrasia del género, pero en realidad asfaltan una perfecta vía de entendimiento entre la literatura sureña clásica y la moderna.

El cantante de gospel regresa a su ciudad natal, Enigma, convertido en una suerte de estrella. Su belleza, su voz angelical y los supuestos poderes curativos de esta han llevado a que se le considere una especie de santo. Sin embargo, tras esta fachada se esconde un hombre vanidoso y ninfómano que inició su carrera profesional como “cristiano” únicamente para escapar de su pueblo, ha amasado grandes cantidades de dinero y ha permitido que su mánager, el manipulador Didymus, lo someta a extrañas penitencias cada vez que da rienda suelta a sus impulsos. Y pese a ser un personaje avaricioso y voluble, el cantante de gospel —anónimo durante toda la novela, por cierto— sorprende por sus auténticos impulsos de bondad, sobre hacia Willalee, el hombre acusado de violar y asesinar a la ex-novia del evangelista.

Regreso a esa necesidad omnipresente en la novela por escapar de Enigma que caracteriza a todos sus personajes, a la voluntad de hacer cualquier cosa (incluso unirse a un circo de rarezas) con tal de huir de la ciudad. Es el epicentro del desaliento, una única calle árida y triste habitada por personajes ordinarios capaces de convertir una casa de miles de dólares en una pocilga. “Paletos” (así son ridiculizados) que depositan en el cantante de gospel sus esperanzas como lo hacían los protagonistas de McCullers con John Singer, aunque aquí esa fe adopta una forma exacerbada y religiosa, más aledaña al delirio que a la realidad. Excentricidad que quizá sea el único significado por obtener en tan desalentador panorama, vacío de futuro y de sentido.

“Los hombres para los que Dios ha muerto se veneran mutuamente.”

Es una novela violenta. Y es esta misma violencia la que parece redimirla, del mismo modo que sucede a nivel argumental con el cantante de gospel al final de la obra. Tal y como dijo Didymus, “suffering was God’s greatest gift to man.” No sabría explicar por qué esta sátira perturbada y ampulosa se resuelve más satisfactoriamente que otras novelas misóginas y rancias en las que el autor parece autoinsertarse. Quizá sea una impresión equivocada. O a lo mejor Crews haya conseguido transmitir lo que otros autores no consiguen, una bien lograda sensación de perspectiva, ridículo e irrealidad.

No es un testimonio de la violencia, sino más bien de su inevitabilidad. Insertados en la acción, no podemos sino ser testigos de ella.

[Andy Killebrew]

Thought this was kind of a banger tbh. There’s some real nastiness in the language and material, but that’s not the point/intrinsic to the philosophy of the novel. Brilliant skewering of evangelism, celebrity adoration (Chappell Roan would like this one), southern racial anxiety, America’s obsession with money, and all of the mythologies folk subscribe to in order to make it through their sorry lil lives.

Do some digging into ole Didymus, named for “Didymus the Blind,” a 4th century theologian, and the book start to make sense. He was denounced as heretical in his day for his proposed reconciliation of Jesus and Lucifer in the same body, and belief that God’s essence/power transcended any sort of earthly limitations.

Enter: The Gospel Singer’s character (salvation through singing; damnation through lust), and his manager Didymus, willing to look past any sin for the effect of the GS’s messaging and impact. Then you layer in all them themes I mentioned earlier. Mix in some semi-autobiographical detailing w/r/t to the Freak Show (read: Crews’s horrible childhood). Inject intimate depictions of rural Georgia. Top it off with a DAMN fun story. Then you got yourself a novel!

Dark and offensive, sure. But also funny, witty, entertaining, and edifying. KO Artist and The Gospel Singer have been two of the more invigorating books I’ve consumed recently…though I have an admitted soft spot for Southern Lit; it feel familiar to me

[Phil reading_fastandslow · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Gospel singing was a way to make money, a way to escape Enigma, a way to keep from having to spend his life wading around in hog slop. He had not planned on God getting into it. He was not even particularly religious, and to have someone tell him that he was responsible for saving a soul was confusing and scary.”

The Gospel Singer has all the elements you might want in a cozy winter read: small town life, Christian guilt, commentary on capitalism, a Freak Show, racial tension, promiscuity, murder, and more packed into 200 pages. This was my first Harry Crews book and it really surpassed my expectations. I read it in three days. Woke up early on my day off just to finish it because I was enjoying it so much. It was a little surprising how many different plot threads and characters he was able to fit into this book. I would find myself forgetting about one element and being pleasantly surprised at its inevitable return. Immaculate construction.

“Now he was taking the unknown tongues and the beauty and the voice back into Enigma, where the people would stand nervously about, secretly touching him, whispering impossible requests in his ears, always there at his back, like hungry dogs over red meat. He would be forced to stand in their midst, impotent, castrated by his inability to relieve their suffering. All he could do was bleed for them, bleed for their ignorance and the condition of their world.

But while he bled for them, that did not mean he wanted to share it with them. What good would it serve for him to be mired in their condition with them? Particularly when it was possible for him to escape.”

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The time when this was printed was very different and the shock factor of attacking spiritual hypocrisy is a drop in the bucket of outrage in our modern times. Yet there is still a good deal worth of material to find in this tale of a man born with a gift and led into temptation. The ending is so on the nose I saw its pores from a mile away but that's not why I read Crews. I read for his outcasts and sexual deviants, his gift for dialogue and slanted take on life. I read Crews because he is really, really entertaining. He writes stories that catch on fire swiftly and don't stop smoldering shortly after the last words. His characters and scenarios stick in my head, and I've developed a craving for his style of storytelling. While I don't think that's the best reflection of taste on my part, that's never been a huge concern of mine, obviously.

[Randall Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reviewer from GQ described this novel as "Flannery O'Connor on steroids", and that is an apt description. Sex, violence, and corruption abound, and from the first page on the story is always intense and disturbing. There are no admirable characters here. Even the murdered MaryBell is tainted, because we never see the purity she supposedly possessed before falling under the Gospel Singer's spell. Cynicism pervades these pages, and I am reminded of other reviews I've read where the work has been described as "two-fisted". "The Gospel Singer" is two-fisted, and after both have punched you, concussion protocols should be observed.

[Sebastian Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

And he knew, had always known, what his choice was, but he was not sure anymore he was free to make it. The more he demanded his right to sin, the more sinners flocked to his voice and found salvation. He was rapidly coming to the place where he believed, against his will, that he might be what the world said he was. It was frightening! It threatened to ruin everything!

“There are Enigmas all over this country, all over the world, and men everywhere are struggling to get out of them.”

Harry Crews knocked it out of the park with his debut novel.

[Harryjazz pendergrass · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say more like 4.5 but still an incredible book. Just some things I thought could have explored a little more, the ending felt more rushed than I would prefer but boy can Harry Crews write an ending.