Breece D'J Pancake (1952–1979)

I became aware of this tragic writer, who committed suicide in 1979, after reading a collection of Larry Brown's short stories, where Pancake was mentioned. These stories are so real that you'll feel you're living in the hollows of West Virginia, where you future outlook may not extend beyond your next drink or fight. As Andre Dubus III points out in his excellent Afterword, there is no artifice at all in these characters. This is not a writer trying to come up with clever sentences or to show more please himself. It is just built seamlessly from the experiences of his own life and his incredible powers of observation. A second Afterword, by John Casey, is also quite insightful. Unlike Dubus, who was inspired when he encountered these stories several years after Pancake's death and who refashioned his own writing as a result, Casey knew Pancake at the University of Virginia and offers a more personal recollection. The Introduction, by James Alan McPherson, who also knew Pancake very well at the University of Virginia, is less successful. While offering good insights, it gets caught up more in McPherson's own perceptions of being a Southerner. I think he either oversimplifies or overcomplicates the matter. Not all Southerners can fit into one bucket anyway, and there is a huge difference between a white Southerner from rural, poor West Virginia and one from the Black Belt, for example. But never mind--it is the stories that count, and you need to read them. show less

"Around the houses, he could see where the wives had planted flowers, but the plants were all dead or dying from the constant shower of coal dust." (pg. 101)

A tough, bleak collection of short stories that are the only creations left to us by the curiously-named Breece Pancake, who shot himself aged 26 in 1979. Like most literary short stories, these require a lot of patience and attention from the reader, and sometimes you can't help but think you might be working harder than you ought. They show more are all stories of West Virginian rut; snapshots of the drain-circling days of truckers, miners, welfare addicts and general hillbilly 'trash'. The tone and voice are excellent but ceaselessly bleak, and for all their quality and potential, the stories are a hard sell. show less

Rake, goed geschreven en uit het leven gegrepen kortverhalen over de uitzichtloosheid van het bestaan in het Amerikaanse binnenland. De tragische auteur Breece ‘dj’ Pancake was jong en erg getalenteerd, maar besloot zelf uit het leven te stappen.
Zijn nalatenschap zijn 12 kortverhalen die het harde leven in het binnenland tastbaar maken voor de lezer: over afwezige en dronken vaders, ontwrichte families, kansloos opgroeien, vechten als reden van bestaan, ...
Knappe bundel voor lezers van show more Harry Crews & Donald Ray Pollock show less

I received this book decades ago as a gift. I remember that I started reading it soon after receiving it and then put it down unfinished. I returned to it this month and read it cover to cover and think I know now what put me off back then.

Breece Pancake wrote about West Virginia’s farmers, miners, whores and car mechanics. He described their lives and their longings, the past that led them to today and the dead ends they’ve reached. His eye and ear were good, and he added his show more imagination and chose his words precisely and sometimes even elegantly. There is absolute believability in every one of his short stories. What isn’t present in his tales is hope for the future. There is no expectation that any of his characters will escape the drunken, violent, hardscrabble lives they are leading. Perhaps that’s why I put the book down. Perhaps that’s why Pancake killed himself at 26.

Pancake had an unquestionable way with words. His brief career was studded with honors and adulation, with comparisons with Hemingway and Faulkner. I have to temper my appreciation with the feeling of gloom that surrounds his stories. I don’t dispute their honesty, but I’m sad that they hold no hope for redemption show less