[.ca] The Mulching of America: A Novel (ISBN 0684825414)

Satriristic Crews:
Although this book was not as strange, or as blatently shocking and funny as Crews' other masterpieces, this book is truly one of his greatest, and one of the greatest social satires to date. In the spirit of "Death of a Salesman" and in the tone of a truly tortured soul, this book was witty, remarkable, and brilliant.

One of the better ones:
I don't see how others can put this book down so much, it's definetly one of his better books. Although, yes, I have to admit it does slow down a bit and the characters aren't as defined, almost as if Harry got lazy around the middle. But I would definetely recommend this book to people who like the ethical kind of graphic expose' books.

Great concept sunk by thin characters & ludicrous plot twis:
I'm a relatively new convert to Crews, but this was the worst of the four books I've read to date. He sets up a great concept to skewer the zeal of salesmen and corporate America, and the first third of the book does grab you, but it soon dissolves into wanderlust. Characters you would have liked to seen fully sketched out and explained are merely pencilled in, and the ending is one of the weakest and unsatisfactory of ANY novel I've read recently. I like it when Crews leaves something to the imagination, but here it just seems like laziness. Mulch this book and pick up "Celebration" or "The Knock-Out Artist" instead.

Compost this book:
Hey, I LIKE Crews but this book stinks, and its a pity because it starts out good, but it runs into a tough patch and just keeps getting deeper and deeper in it. Every writer has his flaws, and often they are intimately related to his strengths; but played improperly as it were. That's sort of what happens here. Crews starts to work his magic, creating cracker archetypes from a few glimpses, a phrase, a cliche, and a heavy dose of alchemy; but the thing falls apart. The characters never form, they have nothing to do, nowhere to go and too much time to get there, which turns out to be the worst of this calamity because as a consequence they have entirely too much too say about nothing to each other while they wander about committing felony non sequitur for 200 or so pages. I've never seen Crews stumble like this, but this book reads like a novel one reads in spurts over a couple of months: you keep having trouble tying it together and wonder if you've forgotten something. Well, if nothing else it serves to illuminate just how magical Crews other work is, because this reads like a half assed attempt to emulate him. Kind of makes one wonder, after all Jerzy Kosinski...nah..never mind. Oh well, he's recovered now with Celebration, and presumably the new book,so no great loss, but don't waste your time or money on this one unless you are so into Crews that you want to see what happens when he flounders

A Man's Gotta Eat:
For many years Crews has been one of my favorite novelists; his personal life is an astonishing example of how endurance can conquer tragedy. Futhermore, the early '90s books, BODY and THE KNOCKOUT ARTIST had him back on the track he had cut with the early novels. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for this near travesty. MULCHING, as an idea, has great promise, but the work reads like a rough draft. The author wants so badly for the audience to embrace the bizarre protagonists of this book, that he sacrifices plot and often sense to accomodate them. Rather than a scathing sendup on American business, MULCHING becomes a parody of its own ideas, a product without substance.