If you haven't heard of Breece D'J Pancake I'm not surprised. He took his own life at the ripe old age of 26, and only lived long enough to see a few of his short stories published in magazines such as The Atlantic. He was a product of West Virginia.
He was trying, I suppose, to be the voice of both his home state and the small town he came from. His fiction hearkens back to the history and geography of that region, and his stories reveal a measured love for small town people living small, thwarted lives. His stories are populated by men's men doomed to failure, and by cunning women doing whatever they can to escape loneliness, poverty or both. Over them all hangs the agricultural toil experienced by generations, and also a burning desire to either flee from or flee back into this same mode of existence.
Overall I liked this story collection, though there are times when the author strays a little too close to Faulkner territory. Of course it's hard to be a Southern author and avoid that comparison, but I think that for the most part he manages to do so.
My favorite story was "First Day of Winter," which details the struggle of a poor farmer living with infirm parents. This story was excellent, and the stories in this collection that aren't excellent were at least very good.
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