Naked in Garden Hills

Harry Crews' Naked in the Garden Hills is a novel that deals with, I want to say, power and failure. I'll go with that. The novel takes place in probably the 60s and its handful of characters live on a deserted Phosphate mine called Phosphate Mountain. The town is waiting for it's founder, Jack O'Boylan, to return and resurrect the plant and it's inhabitant's spirits - not to mention give them their old jobs back. But Jack's not coming, and what they don't know is that the title and deed are in Fat Man's name. I know, Fat Man, I almost stopped reading it right there. But I let it slide because of the writing. It wasn't Nabakov or anything, but then again Nabakov didn't tell a good story so there's that problem too. Crews is telling a good story. And it involves a lot of tourists, girls dancing in a cage, a 4 foot jockey, and a 620 pound man dealing with the loss of a myth. I was surprised to like it so much but it kept me interested to the very end.