- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 1995)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0684809346
- ISBN-13: 978-0684809342
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 15.2 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 454 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,251,173 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
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.
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.
--Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
the air was a shimmering of heat, and it felt to Hickum Looney as though with every step he took the weight of the sun on the top of his balding head and his thin shoulders became heavier. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
the air was a shimmering of heat, and it felt to Hickum Looney as though with every step he took the weight of the sun on the top of his balding head and his thin shoulders became heavier. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Man's Gotta Eat,
By Tim Peeler "tpeeler" (Hickory, NC United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Mulching of America: A Novel (Paperback)
For many years Crews has been one of my favorite novelists; his personal life is an astonishing example of how endurance can conquer tragedy. Futhermore, the early '90s books, BODY and THE KNOCKOUT ARTIST had him back on the track he had cut with the early novels. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for this near travesty. MULCHING, as an idea, has great promise, but the work reads like a rough draft. The author wants so badly for the audience to embrace the bizarre protagonists of this book, that he sacrifices plot and often sense to accomodate them. Rather than a scathing sendup on American business, MULCHING becomes a parody of its own ideas, a product without substance.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Satriristic Crews,
By Kyle (home) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Mulching of America: A Novel (Paperback)
Although this book was not as strange, or as blatently shocking and funny as Crews' other masterpieces, this book is truly one of his greatest, and one of the greatest social satires to date. In the spirit of "Death of a Salesman" and in the tone of a truly tortured soul, this book was witty, remarkable, and brilliant.
3.0 out of 5 stars
One of the better ones,
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.
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