Join award-winning author Ted Geltner for a special "book and film" night celebrating the wild life and literary works of the late, fabled writer, and Gainesville icon, Harry Crews. Joining him will be Harry Crews' longtime lawyer, Huntley Johnson.
Mix and mingle over drinks before a rare public screening of director Tom Thurman's 54-minute "lost" 1993 documentary "Harry Crews: Guilty As Charged." After the film, Geltner and Johnson will discuss Harry Crews, which will be followed by audience Q&A and a book signing for Blood, Bone, and Marrow: A Biography of Harry Crews, the first full-length biography of one of the most unlikely figures in 20th Century American literature.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Blood, Bone, and Marrow
by Ted Geltner is the first full-length biography of one of the most unlikely figures in twentieth-century American literature, a writer who emerged from a dirt-poor South Georgia tenant farm and went on to create a singularly unique voice of fiction. With books such as Scar Lover, Body, and Naked in Garden Hills, Crews opened a new window into southern life, focusing his lens on the poor and disenfranchised, the people who skinned the hogs and tended the fields, the “grits,” as Crews affectionately called his characters and himself. He lived by a code of his own design, flouting authority and baring his soul, and the stories of his whiskey-and-blood-soaked lifestyle created a myth to match any of his fictional creations. His outlaw life, his distinctive voice and the context in which he lived combine to form the elements of a singularly compelling narrative about an underappreciated literary treasure. For more information, check out the press kit.
Original 1993 movie poster
ABOUT THE FILM:
An intimate portrait of the controversial, Georgia-born author featuring candid and exclusive interviews with Crews and his friends and consorts. While it began streaming only recently on Vimeo (Harry Crews: Guilty as Charged), the cult-fave film has not graced theaters in over 20 years.
"Harry Crews: Guilty as Charged"
Directed by Tom Thurman & Chris Iovenko
Fly By Noir Films, 1993 | Danville, KY
Video: 54 mins.
Take a listen! WUFT-FM's "Morning Edition" host Glenn Richards caught up with Ted Geltner this morning ahead of tonight's Harry Crews event at theHippodrome Cinema. How better to open the segment about Blood, Bone, and Marrow than with a song called "Mr. Crews" by the Colorado band Drag The River! Not the first (or the last) band to be inspired by Harry Crews—more on that soon!
