hurrengoa
the gospel singer, escape and guilt julen azpitarte   Outsider and writer Harry Crew (Bacon County 1935, Florida, 2012) began his book The Gospel Singer, published in 1968, with the following line: “Enigma, Georgia, was a dead end”. Enigma is in the south of the USA, pigs wander up and down the streets and in and out of the houses and the coarse locals, rednecks, are everywhere. There is no sign of hope and destiny is laid down by the word of God. They are all condemned; none of them will ever be able to leave. None of them except the Gospel Singer, that is. The almighty has given him the gift of his voice and this will enable his escape from the hell-hole that is Enigma. The Gospel Singer, moreover, is beautiful and pure, unlike the other grotesque citizens of the town.

When listeners hear his voice, they feel the presence of God. The singer having fled Enigma, however, has to return to his hometown to sing. The uncouth locals eagerly await the godly performance because they believe his heavenly voice will banish their bad luck. A terrible thing has happened in the village too: a black man has raped and killed a beautiful young girl blessed by the Gospel Singer. At the same time the singer arrives, a freak show circus pulls into town, and the circus boss, with his 70 cm feet, tries to woo the crowds following the singer to come to see his circus show. While everything that happens in Enigma seems to ring true, the truth is that lies rule the roost here. This precise, fast and sharply written gothic pulp fiction crime novel that chronicles the town is on a par with the masterpieces Carnivale TV series, pulled off air, and Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter, filmed in 1955. It’s a fantastic book that is built around deceit, deformity, guilt and the past, and it contains many references to author Crews’ own experiences: when he was a child he was seriously sick; he served in the Korean War, one of his sons drowned in a neighbour’s pool when he was small; his fondness for drugs; he did karate; he bred birds of prey; he was a teacher, and finally; he wrote about 20 books and lost his family in that half a lifetime. He was a huge fan of writers Mickey Spillane and Graham Greene and had a verse by E. E. Cummings tattooed on his arm: How do you like your blue eyed boy, Mr. Death?.

Crews has been translated to Basque. In 1993, book company Susa published “Autoa” (Car), translated by Eduardo Matauko and Kristin Addis with a foreword by Xabier Montoia. Guilt and escape are fundamental elements of all his books. In the end, who hasn’t felt the need to flee the strangling fingers of one’s own hometown?