Cooper Featured in American Book Review

Dr. Ron Cooper’s essay “Depravity is a Thing of the Spirit: Hating Harry Crews,” is featured in the current issue of American Book Review.

“When asked what one thinks of Harry Crews, the proper response is, ‘Which Harry Crews?’ Even people unfamiliar with his writing often express disgust for his penchant for barroom brawls, drunkenness, bizarre tattoos and haircuts, and harsh classroom antics. Others dismiss him as a sensationalist who filled his novels with brutality and perversity in the attempt to sell books on spectacle alone. Still others take his work more seriously but are unnerved by his redirection of the Southern literary tradition to accuse us of the mess we have made of our world. They hate Crews for these reasons, the very reasons why I love him.”

Read more here http://muse.jhu.edu/article/670380#back