Description
Book SynopsisThe stories in this collection nearly all take place in and around the mountain hollows of West Virginia: a world of cock-fighting, coal-mining, deer-stalking, sex, depression, drinking and death.
''It would be easy to allow his one collection of stories to be buried under the landslide of books published every year. But it's worth doing a little excavating to dig it up. The past few years have seen late-in-the-day and posthumous revivals of interest in writers such ... John Williams. Get out your pickaxes''
New Yorker
Breece D'J Pancake left behind an astonishing achievement. He was a master of a distinctly American vernacular, which he used to remind us of all the ways that fiction could teach us about ourselves. These stories are absolutely essential reading - Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds
Trade ReviewThe best, most sincere writer I've ever read -- Kurt Vonnegut
Breece D’J Pancake left behind an astonishing achievement. He was a master of a distinctly American vernacular, which he used to remind us of all the ways that fiction could teach us about ourselves. These stories are absolutely essential reading * Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds *
This is an exceptional voice; gritty, mordant, invested with the texture of stroked reality; urgent and haunting * Margaret Atwood *
Muscular, precise, lyric and unforgettable… Utterly singular -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *
Simple, rich with dialogue and precious -- Anna Fielding * Stylist *
[Pancake’s] words…combined with an unsparing vision of humanity create the spine-tingling sense that you’re reading an original -- Max Liu * Independent *
Haunting brilliance -- John Dugdale * Literary Review *
By any standards, [the story “Trilobites”] is a masterpiece; that it is an artistic debut is astonishing… To say that Breece D’J Pancake is not well enough known is a massive understatement… Quite simply, a literary genius -- John Burnside * Guardian *
Impressive -- Philip Maughan * New Statesman *
