"Crum" by Lee Maynard--Book Review

Maynard, Lee: Crum( Morgantown, WV Vandalia Press 2001)

As I said in my recent review of Lee Maynard's book "The Pale Light of Sunset: Scattershots And Hallucinations In An Imagined Life", I had never read his work, by my deliberate choice, until after his recent death.  Quoted below is my introduction to that first review of a Lee Maynard work:

"Until Lee Maynard's recent death on June 16, 2017, I had never read any of his work.  Maynard was, and will always be, a controversial figure in the world of literature in West Virginia and Appalachia.  His first published work, "Crum", was actually banned from sale at the Tamarack Center in Beckley, WV, due to its perceived extreme negativity to Crum, WV, Maynard's hometown, and to West Virginia and Appalachia in general. Most of the West Virginia and Appalachian writers who have been my mentors and friends also held Maynard in contempt for the same reason.  We rarely, if ever, discussed him or his work.  And generally, to a person, we never bothered to read his work.  I chose to read this book  [The Pale Light of Sunset: Scattershots And Hallucinations In An Imagined Life] after having read some comments, in a newspaper obituary, from Cat Pleska about Lee Maynard, his death, and his writing.  Cat Pleska and I have never met but are now Internet and E-mail friends and I trust her judgment. I am glad I read the book." My Appalachian Life July 30, 2017

Since reading that first Lee Maynard book, I have become a dedicated reader of his work, while continuing to hold some serious misgivings about some of his actions as a writer, a West Virginian, and an Appalachian.  At his best, Lee Maynard was a powerful and talented writer.  At his worst, from my viewpoint as a native Appalachian writer and protagonist for the Appalachian Culture, Lee Maynard was an inflammatory, abrasive, and insulting writer who sometimes used the bully pulpit which his popularity provided to defame, denigrate, and abuse his native state and Appalachia as whole.  But I was sufficiently impressed by the quality of much of the writing in "The Pale Light of Sunset..." to delve deeper into Maynard's work.  I have now nearly completed reading every book which the man published.  "Crum" was the next book I chose to read after completing "The Pale Light of Sunset...".  Although I have continued to read the body of the man's work after reading "Crum", I must say that if it had been the first of his books I read, I would not have continued in the effort and I might well have not even finished the book.  The opening page describes Crum, the town of Maynard's nativity as a "...sad little town...awaiting each stagnant winter with all the patience, good looks, and energy of a sloth."  The third page describes Kentucky, the land of my nativity, as a "...mysterious land of pig fuckers".  Most native Appalachians who have read such comments about our homeland have a natural and well justified tendency to throw such comments into the burn barrel, whether they came from a recognized writer of  Lee Maynard's stature or from a cousin who was writing back home after making a foothold in the industrial north after fleeing Appalachia. 

Lee Maynard Photo by WVU Press

In her introduction to "Crum", Meredith Sue Willis states that "The novel, then, makes a remarkable journey from the opening descriptions of barren shacks to a rich human and natural landscape."  She goes on to conclude that "this is a novel about love of place".  I will not concur with Ms. Willis completely in that assessment.  But I have stated elsewhere that I believe in some of the writings which appear in "The Pale Light of Sunset..." that Maynard did love West Virginia and Appalachia.  It is much more difficult to reach that conclusion about him if "Crum" is the first of his writings which the reader encounters. 

Lee Maynard Photo by Herald Dispatch

My friend and mentor of forty years, P. J. Laska, and I discussed Lee Maynard and his work during my recent visit with Laska at his home in Arizona.  He reminded me of an essay he had written about Lee Maynard and Denise Giardina in 1990 entitled "Saints And Sinners The Either Or Syndrome In Appalachian Fiction" and provided me with a copy of the essay.  In the essay, Laska states: "Crum" has realistic details but they are cut off from any meaningful context."  Laska goes on to say that "Crum" is a one-sided picture of life in Appalachia.  It isolates the comic, the crude, the trashy, the disgusting."  But he goes on to say in that same paragraph that "Crum's details are not false.  The deprivations, the narrowness of experience, the boredom, the crude pleasures that relieve it--these ring true."  And therein lies the conundrum that Lee Maynard presented to the world in general and to native Appalachians in particular. 

Lee Maynard Photo by Herald Dispatch

The conundrum of Lee Maynard leaves the reader, especially the native Appalachian reader, with some serious questions.  Did Lee Maynard love or hate West Virginia and Appalachia?  Did Lee Maynard intentionally denigrate and defame the town of Crum, the state of West Virginia, and Appalachia as whole?  And, for me most importantly, after he achieved fame did Lee Maynard perhaps regret the damage he had done to his homeland?  These are not simple questions to answer.  They do not lend themselves to a quick, brief discussion and an easy fix.  Lee Maynard understood Crum and the area in Wayne and Mingo counties which he chose to place the novel in.  He chose to leave them behind and to write a great deal of highly inflammatory material about them.  But he also chose to return to West Virginia every year for the annual conference of West Virginia writers as my friend Edwina Pendarvis, an equally broadly published Appalachian writer,  has reminded me.  In a recent e-mail she said this about Maynard: "I knew him just a little bit because almost every summer for several years he came to the WV Writers conference.  I think he liked WV but wouldn't want to live there!"  He also returned, as he wrote so eloquently about in "The Pale Light Of Sunset...", to the farm of a long time friend to deer hunt and rode his motorcycle on most of those trips.  I will never believe that anyone rode a motorcycle from Santa Fe to West Virginia just to see place they hated.  

But to get back to the real subject of this review, the novel "Crum", let's consider that book alone, on its own merits, strengths, and weaknesses.  It is a novel which has caused the blood of many a native Appalachian to boil.  I am sure that many copies of it have been thrown into either the Tug River or a good, hot fire.  It is also a novel which is frequently listed on long lists of works by Appalachians.  It is now sold in Tamarack, the West Virginia cultural and tourist attraction near Beckley, where it was banned for many years.  That is actually where I bought my copy.  

I was born in Lackey, Knott County Kentucky, about fifteen years after Lee Maynard was born in Crum, Wayne  County, West Virginia.  Our birthplaces are only about sixty miles apart.  We grew up in very similar communities and attended very similar high schools.  Based on our personal experiences and educations, we seem to have to reached different conclusions about our homeland.  I might also add that I lived in Logan and Mingo Counties in West Virginia for about five years and worked as a door to door salesman in nearly every inch of Lee Maynard's home environs.  I knowWayne and Mingo counties nearly as well as I know Knott County.  I consider myself to be just as much a West Virginian as I do an Eastern Kentuckian.  They are both soaked deep into my blood, bones, psyche, and soul.  

In the novel "Crum", Lee Maynard insulted both West Virginia and Kentucky in ways that were hurtful, deliberate, and likely not fully founded in facts.  But the novel is still worth reading.  It tells a story that resonates with a significant portion of the populace both in Appalachia and out.  It is a tale of alienation, deprivation, and determination.  Lee Maynard's narrator uses his God given talents to leave Appalachia and seek his healing elsewhere.  Most characters created by native Appalachian writers choose to grit their teeth and either stay at home or return after a brief hiatus elsewhere.  In my opinion, the novel has enough redeeming virtues in its writing to make it worthwhile to read.  But, if you are a native Appalachian, be prepared to see words in print that leave you wishing you had your hands on that rascal.       

"A Pictorial History Of Knott County Kentucky 125th Anniversary"--Book Review

Editorial Staff Troublesome Creek Times 2010 A Pictorial History Of Knott County Kentucky 125th Anniversary (Morley, MO Acclaim Press 2010)

Somehow when this book was fresh off the press I missed it and only learned of its publication recently when I attended the traveling Smithsonian Exhibition on Community Sports called Hometown Teams in Wayland, KY.  My cousin, Charlotte Hicks Caudill, who writes on a part time basis for the Troublesome Creek Times informed me of its existence.  As soon as I returned home from the exhibition, I called several numbers in Hindman, KY, the county seat of Knott County and the site of the Troublesome Creek Times.  No one including the man who answered the phone at the newspaper office could give me a location where I could buy a copy of the book. That individual even told me that there were no plans to publish other copies or editions of the book. I found that interesting since the web site of Acclaim Press still says to this very day, July 6, 2017, that you can obtain a copy of the book by sending a check or money order to the Troublesome Creek Times.  Based on my own somewhat confusing and convoluted experience, rest assured that the only way to obtain a copy is to order it directly from Acclaim Press which my wife did after I became frustrated and intended to give up.  

Photo By Acclaim Press and Troublesome Creek Times

But that is enough grousing about the vagaries of such presses and the difficulty of buying their books.   Acclaim Press is in some ways a small press with a narrow base of publishing interest.  In other ways, if you peruse their online catalogue, they appear to be a money making enterprise and offer a sizable list of books, primarily of local interest to small geographic entities all across the Midwest and South.  They would have to be considered a vanity press since one of the largest and most visible link buttons on their homepage reads "Publish Me".  They seem to make a well funded living publishing the "literary" and "historical" whims of well funded would be writers all across the country.  Physically, "A Pictorial History Of Knott County Kentucky 125th Anniversary" is a solid, very presentable hardback book with a strong binding, relatively good reproduction of the multitude of photographs of many ages and qualities which comprise the book, and printed on good quality paper.  If you are in the mood to spend your hard earned money in order to see your dearly beloved moniker smiling back at you from the cover of a book, Acclaim Press is probably just as good a place to start as any other vanity press.  For those of you who have never heard the term "vanity press", such presses are publishing houses which publish books for which the authors pay all or most of the cost.  Most vanity presses offer little or not editorial control or criticism and publish exactly what they receive from an author complete with typographical errors, general errata, and outright lies which an author might believe will serve their particular purposes.  Consider the foregoing paragraph to be my little sermon for the day about the weaknesses of vanity presses if you are in the mood to be famous at your own expense.  

Now, let me say a few words about these types of "historical" books in general and this book in particular.  As a genre, these types of books have little or nothing to do with history. They are more accurately to be described as a collection of fairly recent to ancient episodes in the life of a community at best.  At worst, such books are a potpourri of randomly selected and arranged photographs from the area in question and have little or no textual discussion of the material offered.  They also have a tendency to have a very prevalent volunteer bias.  "Volunteer bias" is a term from academic research which describes the many short comings of research which uses only those people who step out of anonymity for their own undisclosed reasons and tend to skew research toward whatever opinions or biases they hold.  In the case of "A Pictorial History of Knott County Kentucky 125th Anniversary", what has happened is that the only photographs included in the book are those whose owners had a desire to see them included.  I do not know if the editors and publishers charged a submission fee for each photograph or not but it is a common practice in such books to do so.  Therefore, do not delude yourself into believing that this is a historical book.  It does contain some photographs of people who were well known in Knott County.  It also does not contain any photographs of most of the previous elected officials in Knott County, most of the more notorious murders and criminals, or any of the better known bootleggers and moonshiners who called the county home.  It leaves a great deal to be desired if you are actually looking for historical information about the county and its people.  Some families whose members had lots of photographs and an inherent desire to see those photographs memorialized in "black and ink" to quote Lum and Abner managed to get the book to appear as if their families were among the most prominent in the county.  Other families whose members played highly important roles in the county are not represented by a single photograph because none of the family members submitted to the editors.  The bottom line is that you should take this book with a very large grain of salt.  

If you approach the book, "A Pictorial History Of Knott County Kentucky 125th Anniversary", with the idea that it would be nice to see some photographs of your family and friends, old teachers, old companions long forgotten, or just someone you detested and don't ever want to forget, then you won't be disappointed.  But don't approach this book with the delusion that you are looking at history.  History and this book have never been introduced and did not bump into each other going up or down the courthouse steps skittering to and fro on Goose Avenue.