Eugene Biggs is one of Crews's most fully developed fictional characters.

His redneck background is the source of both his difficulties and his strengths; his life in New Orleans is the development of his character and the exploration of his options. Forced to leave home because of the poverty of his family, he takes with him a core of values: a respect for the truth, a need for personal integrity, and a sense of responsibility for others. When he fails in his dream of becoming a fighter, he must depend for survival on a society more corrupt, complex, and deceptive than he is equipped to handle. When the exigencies of surviving conflict with his values, he determines not to think about what he is doing. Eventually, however, he realizes that in not thinking, he has consented in his own destruction. When he discovers the intended betrayal of Jacques...