Word: grubbs
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...seen plenty of stupid little shows in the past ten years, and they have not been without their small pleasantries. In any case, they are at least harmless. Rhinestones in the Rough, on the other hand, demands no tolerance, for it is nasty and insulting. The sniggering in Page Grubb's book is aimed at women, radicals, and (for reasons I fail to comprehend) Franklin D. Roosevelt...
...shorteomings of Pudding books rarely destroy Pudding shows, and this is one tradition which this year's extravaganza has mercifully continued. Page Grubb and Don Wilkins have conspired in concocting music and lyrics which are always competent and occasionally inspired. Grubb's elegantly arranged "Keep Your Hands Off My Hero." and Wilkins' trenchant "This is the Big Time" almost rescue the show. Cheryl McFadden's choreography is shaky in the opening scenes, but produces a particularly dazzling kick-line of glittering green "Grizzlies" toward the end of the first act. Beoeulf's costumes and sets produce the usual spectacular effects...
...late afternoon of savage bottomlands heat in the April of 1935. Johnny Jesus stood between his two companions, leaning back against a high baggage wagon on the warped bricks of the depot landing and facing the big, moonfaced gunman." Serious business; savage bottomlands heat and a big moonfaced gunman. Grubb adds a sentence of smoky poetry to make sure everyone takes his meaning: "Uncle Doc [the gunman] was one of those humped, huge men who, beneath a cloak of paunch, are cat-swift as dainty dancers and hard as sacked salt...
...novelist, Grubb has written about Appalachian violence before. The Night of the Hunter (1954), his first book, is a shadowy work about a murderous preacher who chases a couple of kids up and down the Ohio River. The Voices of Glory (1962), a moody, backward-looking novel, has its share of crazy thunderation. They offer some clue as to why the "muttering meanness" guff in this book turns out to be more than just a touch overwritten...
...think of. The tall stories that Faulkner wrote when his mood was bourbon-light are in the same family; The Reivers bears a resemblance to Fools' Parade. Dark violence and piebald absurdity share an uncertain border, and now and then some mythmaker on his day off, like Grubb, manages to write within this uncertainty. A fine book, written for the hell of it, which is a splendid reason...