The Gospel Singer, by Harry Crews, and Do, Lord, Remember Me, by George Garrett, develop the same general material, if not the same theme: both are concerned with modern manifestations of the old-time religion, with the crassness and grotesqueness of man's nature, and with sex. Crews's book has all the hallmarks of a first novel: it is energetic but uneven, competent but clumsy, not finally satisfactory but memorable nonetheless. The narrative is framed by the Gospel Singer's return to his home town of Enigma, Georgia, whence he departed not very long ago on his way to great fame and greater fortune. (p. 159)

First novelists are the Quixotes of the writing trade. Young and as yet unbloodied by the struggle with the word, they will try anything, and the result is often admirable fiction deeply flawed. Crews is a little too bold for my taste. He takes the old...