The triad of novellas which make up Crowder’s
The City of NO
take their protagonists, and the reader, on voyages of adventure, passion, tragedy, and self-knowledge. Like Ahab, Keller Hardy chases an aquatic monster of doom; like Odysseus and Jonah, Henry Gereighty roams the varied and perilous world to find a way home. In language by turns surreal, mystical, ribald, analytical, and intimate, Crowder shows us the shattered inner landscape of gay men in the Deep South, survivors of dual devastations, the Genocide (AIDS and homophobia) and the Catastrophe (Katrina). The struggle between love and hatred is enacted in societal rage and in the tenderest human bonds. The epic quest may both exalt and ravage.