Stanley Crawford was born in 1937 and is a graduated of the University of Chicago, USA and the Sorbonne, USA. He is the author of several novels, among them Petroleum Man, Log of the S.S. the Mrs Unguentine, Travel Notes, and Gascoyne, as well as the memoirs A Garlic Testament: Seasons on Small New Mexico Farm and Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico. He is coproprietor with his wife, Rose Mary Crawford, of El Bosque Garlic Farm in Dixon, New Mexico, USA.
"Everything must go in this playful snapshot of an end-of-life
giveaway, the sixth novel from an offbeat author (Petroleum Man,
2005, etc.).Bill Starr is so old almost all his friends and close
relatives are dead. The childless widower lives alone in a
renovated 18th-century farmhouse somewhere in the United States.
Ramona, his undocumented Hispanic housekeeper, is both
compassionate guardian and comic relief. Here's Crawford's shaky
premise: Bill, less concerned about the past than the future, will
bestow his possessions on his dimly remembered extended family, who
will collect their booty in person, and place their names on an
improvised family tree: 'Things are seeds. I wish to plant mine
into the future.' Their haphazard survival appeals to his free
spirit. The novel alternates between visits from these relatives,
who are meeting their benefactor for the first time, and Bill's
random thoughts. The tone is light and breezy. His pride and joy is
Desdemona, his 1937 Pierce-Arrow, named by his late wife. (Its hood
ornament makes for good cover art.) Bill awards it impulsively to a
likable young man with whom, improbably, he shares a grandfather;
much better him than Bill's greedy stepson. Though the old guy
tells us nothing about his career in marketing or his happy
marriage, he allows us a few peeks into his past. He sowed his wild
oats in Europe with both genders: "Sex for sex's sake." Now he
ogles, discreetly, the muscular yard boy. Creaky limbs are a
constant reminder of mortality: 'In the old days it was...London to
Paris. Now just recliner to chaise lounge.' Yet Bill's worldview is
benign. He has no epiphanies to offer, for he ends as befuddled as
he began, but he's willing to embrace failure along with success.
Gossamer-thin entertainment." --Kirkus Reviews
"Seed is one of the finest novels I have ever read."
--Michael Ventura, author of Night Time Losing Time and The Zoo
Where You're Fed to God "Seed is an anti-quest narrative: our hero
sleeps, aggrieved, in his chair, dreaming of shedding possessions.
He is ferocious, uncertain, disheveled, a spirit kindred to
Unguentine, a mess, and easy to love. Another brilliant and
hilarious novel by a great American writer."--Noy Holland, author
of Swim for the Little One First and What Begins with Bird
"Stanley Crawford has given us this masterwork, a book so funny, so
generous, and so perceptive that it feels like an unforgettable
evening spent with your family's weirdest and wisest scion. Seed
shows us that the twilight we must face--both individually and as
an empire--can be more illuminating than our most verdant
noon."
--Ken Baumann, author of Solip and Say, Cut, Map
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