The Mulching of America [Hardcover]

Harry Crews (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 1995

Celebrated for his slightly warped comic and moral vision of contemporary America, the author tells the story of a door-to-door salesman's struggle with his Boss, a man with a genius for selling junk. 15,000 first printing. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The four years since Crews's last novel (Scar Lover) haven't softened him any. This vision of America as a land of hucksters run amok is as black-humored and bilious as anything he's written. Crews's new protagonist is Hickum Looney, a middle-aged door-to-door salesman dedicated to peddling Soaps for Life to the needy and elderly as a panacea for life's ailments. Looney, like nearly every character here, is a con, willing to lie, flatter and bully his way into a sale. His sole commitment?to the Company?is shattered when, after years of trying, he breaks the sales record set by "the Boss" only to be rewarded not with the expected bonus but with humiliation: at the local regional office, he is stripped near-naked by the other salesmen and tossed outside into a parking lot. There he meets one of the many eccentric souls who propel the plot, Gaye Nell Odell, a whore who may not have a heart of gold but is no con: "I'll give you what you want, anyway you want it. Head, hand, straight, dirt track, it's all the same to me. I give dollar value for dollar paid," she tells Looney later. She takes off her blouse to give to Looney, who in fear and anger has fouled himself (the narrative is charged with scatological shocks as well as freewheeling sexual tension). The pair eventually make their way to Looney's house, where Gaye Nell discovers that love tempers Looney enough so that, as the novel draws to a close, he has regained a semblance of humanity and honor. But in Crews's bleak universe, that doesn't translate into happiness. For the man behind the Company, the Boss, a demented, sexist fellow with a world-class harelip ("My narelip was given na me by Nod!") has big plans for Soaps for Life, even at the price of bringing in women, including Gaye Nell, to further his schemes?and all who stand in his way, rebellious salesmen in particular, are candidates for "the mulcher" that churns out the organic fertilizer that allows the Company gardeners to grow such beautiful roses. Similarly, readers of this razor-sharp satire will feel as if they've been through a mulcher?along with the American Dream that Crews so cleverly, so savagely, chops to bits.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Traveling salesman Hickum Looney has been toiling 25 years with the Soaps for Life Company to be the best salesman in the outfit. After one especially good day of door-to-door sales, Hickum figures he can easily win the annual Soaps for Life sales contest. But the Boss, a manic, hare-lipped figure who is part Norman Vincent Peale, part Jim Bakker, and part Adolf Hitler, has always won the contest, and he has other plans for Hickum Looney and Soaps for Life. Along the way to fame and misfortune, Hickum meets up with the typical cast of Crews's misfits: Gaye Nell Odell, a prostitute and karate expert whose ability to shoot a pistol renders one of Hickum's enemies toeless; Crews's perennial character, former bodybuilder Russell Muscle (e.g., Body, 8/90), now the Boss's masseur; and the Boss's chauffeur, Pierre LaFarge, a former convict with unconventional sexual appetites. For a brief moment after he and Gaye Nell become lovers, Hickum's flame of success flickers steadily only to be extinguished by the strong winds of the Boss's company plan. At its best, Crews's writing is a two-edged sword that slashes with its razor-thin hilarity while slicing open the underside of the New South to expose its depravity and hollowness. This novel is indeed one of his best.
--Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (October 26, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684809346
• ISBN-13: 978-0684809342
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,147,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great concept sunk by thin characters & ludicrous plot twis, August 4, 1999

By 

Robert Ruggiero (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The MULCHING OF AMERICA: A Novel (Paperback)

I'm a relatively new convert to Crews, but this was the worst of the four books I've read to date. He sets up a great concept to skewer the zeal of salesmen and corporate America, and the first third of the book does grab you, but it soon dissolves into wanderlust. Characters you would have liked to seen fully sketched out and explained are merely pencilled in, and the ending is one of the weakest and unsatisfactory of ANY novel I've read recently. I like it when Crews leaves something to the imagination, but here it just seems like laziness. Mulch this book and pick up "Celebration" or "The Knock-Out Artist" instead.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars (three and a half stars) Not exactly Swift, but entertaining nevertheless, July 19, 2006

By 

trainreader (Montclair, N.J.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The MULCHING OF AMERICA: A Novel (Paperback)

Obviously, "The Mulching of America," doesn't quite measure up as one of Harry Crews' best works -- I would put "The Knockout Artist," "Feast of Snakes," "Body," and the two novellas "Car" and "Gypsy's Curse" well ahead of it. Warts and all though, and some very stilted dialogue (which would continue in Crews' subsequent and last novel, "Celebration"), "Mulching" is a hell of a ride, with twists and turns so unpredictable, it's almost dizzying. In his satire of corporate America, I wouldn't say that Crews is the next Jonathan Swift, but I truly doubt this was his intention. Instead, we are given the typical Crews mix of eccentric characters in hyper-realistic surroundings, with, of course, a shocking ending.

Here, Hickum Looney, a relatively successful door-to-door Miami salesman of soap products, who has no other life, learns the hard way that he should never outsell his demented, hare-lipped boss, known as "The Boss" a/k/a "The Lip," and later known as Elmo Jeroveh (which isn't his name either). The Boss, who gets a perverse pleasure of beating the crap out of his chauffeur, Pierre Lafarge, and masseur, Russell Muscle (a recurring Crews character), is perhaps the strangest, most grotesque Crews character in any of his novels, which, if you've read some of his books, you would understand is really saying something.

"The Mulching of America," doesn't quite work as satire, or even as a cohesive novel. However, it's well worth the wild ride, and lends additional proof to the fact that the unique Harry Crews is one the best post-Faulkner Southern writers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars One of the better ones, February 17, 2000

By 

Kristy W. - See all my reviews

This review is from: The MULCHING OF AMERICA: A Novel (Paperback)

I don't see how others can put this book down so much, it's definetly one of his better books. Although, yes, I have to admit it does slow down a bit and the characters aren't as defined, almost as if Harry got lazy around the middle. But I would definetely recommend this book to people who like the ethical kind of graphic expose' books.