When a local man returns to Enigma, Georgia, as a successful traveling evangelist, the townspeople, who idolize him, begin to attribute him with healing powers he knows he doesn’t have. The celebrated first novel of Harry Crews, in its Penguin Classics debut.

A Penguin Classic

In Crews’ first novel published in 1968, a gifted, idolized singer returns to his poor hometown and a life and family he is so far removed from he now holds them in contempt. The Gospel Singer reveals the absurdity of blind religious faith and idol worship and the hypocrisy that results with the offering of money or sex. Crews grapples with race, gender, religion, and place and steps back to divulge the secrets of his characters - including a dead girl awaiting the gospel singer’s melodious eulogy, his dysfunctional family, a murderer, the zealous town residents, and a traveling freak show. This darkly comic, bitingly satirical, grotesque, and violent - yet strangely empathetic - first novel displays Crews’ brilliant literary talent that garnered critical acclaim and a cult following.