Two days ago I finished A Feast of Snakes by Crews. I want to recommend it but it's very depressing. Here's some of the depressing hi-lights: Main character Joe Lon Mackey, who was once a Pro-Football hopeful, runs his father's liquor store; his wife, Elfie, who is the sweetest woman I've ever read, who Joe Lon beats and inexplicably hates; Joe Lon's friends lead Elfie outside while Joe Lon fucks (there's no other word for what he does) his highschool sweetheart on their bed; Joe Lon's sister Beeder, who has been in her room ever since she saw her dead mother on a chair with a bag on her head, rope tight around her neck and a note on her lap; if that isn't sad enough, Beeder likes to take her own shit and rub it into her hair. Have I made you want to die yet? There is also the brutal training of pitbulls to fight to their death, although Joe Lon's father is the one who kicks Tuffy to death.
Why did I keep reading, why do I still consider this book amazing? The answer is in that sentence actually: it was amazing. There's something to be said for a book that genuinely affects you, good or bad. It is not an easy feat. I could read of any old book trying to be depressing and it might not affect me at all if the characters are not interesting or well displayed. Somehow I understood and empathized with Joe Lon, even though he was an incredible bastard and not the kind of guy I typically want to feel sorry for. The ending of the book is powerful, maybe the most powerful I've ever read. Give Crews a chance, maybe not this one if you aren't up for feeling sad. But he's got like 15 novels.

This is the sort of book review that I hate to write; the kind that could never be in any kind of literary magazine. Oh well.