{"product_id":"body-isbn-9780143139195","title":"Body","description":"\u003cb\u003eHarry Crews’s savagely funny and gritty portrait of discipline, obsession, control, and power\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShereel Dupont, formerly the secretary Dorothy Turnipseed, trains rigorously at the behest of her boss turned personal trainer Russell (“Muscle”) Morgan, sculpting her body into taut muscles and bone in preparation for the Ms. Cosmos bodybuilding championship. But the arrival of one family — \u003ci\u003eher\u003c\/i\u003e family, the Turnipseeds — endangers her chance for victory. The ragtag group disturbs the chiseled competition and leaves Shereel at a crossroads: to whom does her name, and body, belong? Infused with Harry Crews’s trademark dark humor and absurdity, \u003ci\u003eBody \u003c\/i\u003eis a funny and gritty exploration of how far some will go for physical glory and purpose.\u003cb\u003eHarry Crews \u003c\/b\u003ewas born in 1935 at the end of a dirt road in Alma, Bacon County, Georgia, a rural community near the Okefenokee Swamp. A protégé of Southern novelist Andrew Lytle, Crews published his first short story in \u003ci\u003eThe Sewanee Review \u003c\/i\u003ein 1962. He published his first novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Gospel Singer\u003c\/i\u003e, in 1968. Its publication earned Crews a new teaching job at the University of Florida and paved the way for the publication of seven more novels over the next eight years, including \u003ci\u003eNaked in Garden Hills \u003c\/i\u003e(1969); \u003ci\u003eCar \u003c\/i\u003e(1972); \u003ci\u003eThe Hawk Is Dying \u003c\/i\u003e(1973), which was adapted into a film released in 2006; \u003ci\u003eThe Gypsy’s Curse \u003c\/i\u003e(1974); and the widely acclaimed \u003ci\u003eA Feast of Snakes \u003c\/i\u003e(1976). Crews’s reputation as a bold and daring new voice in Southern writing grew during this time. In 1978, Crews’s memoir of his youth, \u003ci\u003eA Childhood: The Biography of a Place\u003c\/i\u003e, was published to enduring acclaim. Crews, who died in 2012 at age seventy-six, was a prominent writer in the literary genre known as dirty South or grit lit. He remade Southern Gothic in his own rough-hewn image in eighteen memorable novels, including \u003ci\u003eKarate Is a Thing of the Spirit \u003c\/i\u003e(1971), \u003ci\u003eThe Knockout Artist \u003c\/i\u003e(1988), and \u003ci\u003eBody \u003c\/i\u003e(1990), dozens of riveting nonfiction pieces, and one of the finest memoirs in American literature. In 2002, the University of Georgia Libraries inducted Harry Crews into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMJ Lenderman\u003c\/b\u003e (foreword) was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, and is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His albums include the critically acclaimed \u003ci\u003eBoat Songs\u003c\/i\u003e (2022) and breakthrough release \u003ci\u003eManning Fireworks\u003c\/i\u003e (2024), named one of the year’s best albums by \u003ci\u003eRolling Stone\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePitchfork\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePaste\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Penguin Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48532129317093,"sku":"NP9780143139195","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780143139195.jpg?v=1773182762","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/body-isbn-9780143139195","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}