All We Need of Hell Paperback | Pages: 162 pages

Identify Out Of Books All We Need of Hell

Title	:	All We Need of Hell
Author	:	Harry Crews
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 162 pages
Published	:	April 1st 1988 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 1987)
Categories	:	Fiction. American. Southern

Description To Books All We Need of Hell

Really, I can't believe I liked this book as much as I did. The characters are not likable for the first 100 pages (out of 160), and the situations are bizarre. But, with that being said, Crews takes the characterizations to the extreme and makes the situations so over the top that hilarity just has to ensue from there.

Duffy Deeter is the main character of the novel. He is a forty-something lawyer, obsessed with his body and working out. He has a wife who is obsessed with her looks and an 8-year-old son who is a mama's boy and eats all the junk food he wants. Duffy also has a mistress, who I couldn't tell if his wife knew about and didn't care or if she just didn't know about the other one.

The opening scene has Duffy showing up to play a game of handball against a professional football player named Tump. What should have been a friendly game turns into a fist fight wherein Duffy gets one tooth knocked out and one broken. I kept returning to this image throughout the book because while that tooth is only mentioned by his wife upon first seeing him, but that broken tooth remains through all the other crazy things that happen.

Duffy gets into a falling out with his law partner, as he set up Duffy for the showdown with Tump, and it doesn't end there because the partner starts sleeping with Duffy's wife - and they are not very discreet about it either. So, Duffy's wife then wants a divorce and his law partner wants Duffy out of the firm. Duffy's bank account is wiped out, the locks on his house are changed and he is left with the winnebago he was about to go on vacation with his wife and son. Duffy is down, but he will not stay down. He vows revenge against his law partner and wife.

He then makes a strange alliance with Tump, the man who knocked out his tooth. They become friends in these circumstances and Tump bonds with Duffy's son in a way Duffy never had before. This friendship causes Duffy to look at his son in a different light. The ending is somewhat heartwarming for such a bizarre plot with cartoonish characters.

Itemize Books As All We Need of Hell

Original Title:	All We Need of Hell: A Novel
ISBN:	0060914602 (ISBN13: 9780060914608)
Edition Language:	English
Setting:	Florida(United States)

Rating Out Of Books All We Need of Hell

Ratings: 3.93 From 487 Users | 48 Reviews

Rate Out Of Books All We Need of Hell

I swear this same book has been written before, with different names and different settings, but this whole "man with man problems is put in bizarre situations that test his masculinity" and these tropes, conversations and inner monologues have been written countless times before and I'm constantly shocked to see this same story has been published so many times.I liked a feast for snakes so I know Harry Crews is better than this.I am a fan of the Emily Dickinson title reference tho

Duffy Deeter seems like a pretty tense character. Fit and filled with zen, but still heading for a breakdown. Which sorta is what happens to him, but not in a way I expected. Cruel and funny, though actually a rather happy ending to it all. I read Feast Of Snakes a few years ago and really liked it. All We Need Of Hell evolves around a similar kind of people and places.

My third Crews novel of the summer and it remains consistent with his absurd sense of character development. Short (160) pages and sweet and full of demented chuckles round on every page. As always, devoured by those with unusual taste and wickedly dark sense of humor......

Great Crews book. Veers wildly around as the characters are really unpredictable - it's hard to determine how it's all going to end. Duffy Deeter is an unstable health fanatic whose life is getting out of control, no matter how hard he tries to control it. I love the character Tump, and how Duffy's son is transformed. Another funny, awesomely messed-up tale from Crews.

Lusty and outlandish, the novels of the recently departed Mr. Crews beckon repeatedly, promising and delivering unparalleled pleasures. Once he stirs particular desires through his prose, he satisfies repeatedly, and before you know it, you are hooked. He is a dangerous candy man, creating thirsts in your soul that only he can quench. He should be considered a controlled substance. Take a taste at your peril. Some readers simply should not be allowed to dive between the covers and cozy up to

Harry Crews is clearly a funny bastard, one who writes in lean, contemptuous prose, but the narrative of this short novel is not very strong. Rather, it's more focused on being a character study about a man's realisation that he's living in something like a echo-chamber, and that his entire construction of reality is a fake thing, separated long ago from real happiness and connection.It's all Duffy Deeter stripping away the artifice he's unwittingly frame his life within.I look forward to

I had not heard of Harry Crews until I read his obituary. He sounded interesting. Checked out the lone Crews book at the library and gave it a read. Thought it was okay. Turns out Harry is more interesting than his book. Crews is of the type of author that feels he must assemble a cast of crazies to make the book interesting, like Carl Hiaasen. Not really my style.I might read him again but I doubt he'll be on my "must read" list.