Scar Lover

Scar Lover is a miraculous, true-to-the-bone story of love and redemption, at once a classic southern novel and purely, unmistakably, Harry Crews.

Running from a past that has scarred and blamed him, and a tragic accident that has destroyed his family, Pete Butcher avoids all personal contact. Then Sarah Leemer, the oddly beautiful girl next door, walks into his life. Slowly, sweetly, and with a determination almost Faulknerian in its ferocity, Sarah pulls Pete back into life and into the ever increasing complications of love, family, death, and deliverance. For Sarah has made Pete her own, and as she takes her claim, we see the miraculous power of love without boundaries or fear.

"Crews admirably sustains his theme of disfigurement and healing, and if the finale is slightly ambiguous it still bears its author's trademark perverse twist." Publishers Weekly

"In this, his 17th book, Crews manages a series of improbable plot twists and turns and maneuvers a gaggle of characters in the
manner of an expert juggler who keeps all balls smoothly in the air. He keeps them all going—and this is no small feat—until suddenly he changes direction. A shift occurs that has the reader flipping backward to see how it happened. Pete, escaping from family tragedy in South Georgia, finds a job in Jacksonville, Florida, unloading cellophane in a boxcar, and meets up with pretty neighbor Sarah and maddening neighbor Max, along with his comrade in the boxcar, a Rastafarian named George, commonly known as the 'Burnt Nigger.' George's back has been branded by the hot irons of his Obeah woman, Linga, who casts an evil shadow over everyone's plans. Perhaps it is the evil of Linga that allows Crews to change Pete from a self-confessed 'murderous cold heart' to a man aiming to take care of Sarah's family and raise a baseball team with her. Fans of Crews will again applaud his masterful dark comedy, but the uninitiated, especially woman readers, will be stopped by lines like: 'He kissed her. It was the only way, that or hit her.' Lines of dialogue, however, are perfect, and perhaps Pete's cold heart serves us well in this rollicking comedic tale." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)

"Scar Lover will not disappoint Crews's fans." Library Journal

Harry played a brief role in Sean Penn's The Indian Runner and dedicated his book Scar Lover to Penn.