Harry Crews died four years ago today. As you might expect, Harry was still writing until the very end. His health was deteriorating greatly, but he was in the middle of a novel that he said would be the best thing he had ever written. His mantra was “500 words a day,” something he took from his literary hero, Graham Greene, and Harry was still trying to hit that mark as the sand slipped out of the hour glass. A few months before his death, he continued to see his craft as the ultimate goal: “There is no quit in this,” he told me. “There is no finish line. You don’t quit. That’s the one thing you can’t entertain. To quit, let’s you off the hook, takes the hook out of your gut, is what it does.” RIP Harry.
