The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake. Breece D’J Pancake. 1983.
Debut. Short story anthology. Appalachian literature. Literary fiction.
A landmark collection of short stories, published posthumously, following the author’s tragic suicide, that captures his raw, gritty, and relentlessly bleak perception of rural Appalachia.
Each of the 12 stories are told from a different perspective. The protagonists—miners, scrappers, farmers, and ex-convicts—are working-class men who are deeply lonely, emotionally stunted, and carrying a heavy burden of survival. All share a common struggle with change and decay. Most are trying to escape. While the rest are merely struggling to survive with what little they have left to hold onto.
Pancake’s lean, muscular and direct prose projects red-clay realism mixed with Appalachian melancholy to create a vibe of inescapable rural desperation, of powerlessness against the forces of a world that is indifferent to the existence of its inhabitants.
Pancake’s Appalachia, like Cormac McCarthy’s, is a cramped and claustrophobic prison cell. It is a trap from which his characters are unable to escape. Everything is dead or dying What remains has decayed beyond hope of redemption.
AUTHORS – I write short book reviews that focus on voice and vibe. They are useful to querying authors searching for comp titles. There are more like this on my website.
REMINDER – If you follow my reviews, you already know this. I have a policy about reviewing debut novels. Provided I finish them, I always rate debut novels with maximum stars, regardless. When I don’t finish a debut novel, I don’t review it. No exceptions. And I don’t review books I don’t pay full price for.