"A Triumph Of The Spirit" by Lee Maynard--Book Review

 

Over the last few years on this blog, I have written extensively about the writing of Lee Maynard.  In fact, I have written about every book the man ever published except this one and one more, very minor book about life in the outdoors which was his first published book and is now nearly impossible to find at a price which can be afforded by anyone except the proverbial Philadelphia lawyer.  "A Triumph Of The Spirit" is likely to be Lee Maynard's last book since he died on June 16, 2017, at the age of eighty after producing a total of nine published books including that very small edition of the outdoor book.  This book was published posthumously by an entity  named Western Door Publishing which appears to be an entity which might be owned by Amazon Books.  The copy I own is a publication on demand type book which is, in my estimation, another short coming of the computer age.  The book was published posthumously.  It may or may not have been in the editing and publication process before Maynard died.  It might or might not have been published by his heirs and primarily edited by them and an editor at Western Door Publishing although actual editing work is a chimera in the publication on demand business.  Whatever the actual answers are, the book was not published by the University of West Virginia Press which had published six of his previous books.  This book is composed of   numerous sections of his previous books and several other previously unpublished short stories and memoir pieces.  But it is well worth reading despite the nature of the editing and publication process and the flaws which that process allowed to escape a higher quality editor.  

 Lee Maynard loved motorcycles, rode them all his life, and a great deal of his writing was a courtship with motorcycles.  He apparently loved to ride Triumph motorcycles, hence the title which is, of course, a double meaning which also addresses a life well lived and produced success in several areas for Maynard including his writing career, work as an administrator for the state of West Virginia, time as the CEO of a major outdoor experience company, and a brief stint as a university president.  The book loosely follows a timeline of Maynard's life and writing career with sections republished from all his major books including the well known and, at times, notorious "Crum Trilogy" which is comprised of "Crum", "Screaming With The Cannibals", and "The Scummers", all of which I have read and written about on this blog at the links provided.  Maynard also produced and I have previously read and reviewed "The Pale Light of Sunset Scattershots and Hallucinations in an Imagined Life".  He also wrote and I have read and appreciated but failed so far to write about a novel called "Cinco Becknell" which is set in New Mexico and is about a man in the homeless population with whom Maynard worked as the founder and board member of a food bank in the area.  I will attempt to correct my error in never writing about that book in the near future.  But, right now, let's discuss the work in question, "A Triumph Of The Spirit".  

 

While significant portions of the book are material which, to my knowledge, never previously saw the light of day, much of it is sections of Maynard's previous half dozen books.  Admittedly, most of those previously published sections contain some of his best known and appreciated work.  Several other short stories, and one story which can best be described as a novella, are also included in the book.  Whoever edited the book, appears to have made a conscious attempt to do some chronological ordering of the sections but that work is not absolute.  It does not fully provide a comprehensive timeline of either Lee Maynard's life or his published works.  But, it is still well worth reading, especially if you have already read any of his work and appreciated it.  Four of the stories in the book, including the novella I alluded to earlier, are good, high quality fiction.  It is impossible to know if Maynard had any intentions, as he wrote those stories, of either producing a complete book of short stories or, perhaps, publishing the novella as such or expanding it into a full length novel.  

There is one short anecdote about riding with a friend in Maine on motorcycles, being caught in bad weather, taking shelter in what they believed was an abandoned service station, and having the local sheriff called to remove them.  The story ends with the sheriff responding to the call, as the elderly female owner requested, and then transporting the two and their motorcycles on a trailer the sheriff brought along with an obvious preconceived plan to his jail where he fed them, gave them dry clothes, and housed them comfortably for the night in his warm, and apparently empty jail, all without any animosity and a good deal of hospitality.  The novella, titled "The Corn Princess" is set in a native American pueblo in New Mexico where the main character, based on Maynard himself as nearly all of his protagonists are, is an Anglo man who visits the village at times to spend time recuperating from the road and lusts after a beautiful young native woman who has a boyfriend of less than positive character.  This story deserves to have become  a full length novel and I honestly suspect that might have been Maynard's original intent if life and old age had not caught up with him before the job was done.  Another of the better new pieces in the book is called "Scorpion" and is a somewhat long short story about a male, Anglo motorcycle rider and a Hispanic woman whose beloved grandfather has been murdered by other, less decent motorcycle riders.  This story contains some of Maynard's best writing about the sexual attraction, sex, human interaction, and the potential cruelty of human nature.  It also could have easily been expanded into a better than average novel.  

My final conclusions about this book are these: 1) it is a shame that it is not more cohesive and chronological; 2) it is a shame that Maynard did not live to fully oversee the publication process; 3) it is a shame that Lee Maynard never published an actual collection of short stories; 4) it is a shame that Lee Maynard did not live to expand at least two of these stories into novels; and 5) I will always miss knowing that another good Lee Maynard novel is about to come hot off the press.  

But, for the average reader, especially one who loves motorcycles and riding, this is a book worth the time and expense of reading. 

"The Scummers" by Lee Maynard--Book Review

Maynard, Lee. The Scummers (Morgantown, WV, Vandalia Press 2012)

For several months, I have focused my blogging mainly on political posts due to the nature of the ongoing constitutional crisis from which the country suffers due to the illegitimate, Russian manipulated seizure of the US White House.  During that time, I have managed to read several books of an Appalachian nature but postponed writing about them on this blog.  In late November 2017, I had posted my review of "Crum", the first volume in the Crum Trilogy by Lee Maynard but I refrained since that time from writing reviews of other books within his sizable body of work. I did manage to write and post a review of "Screaming With The Cannibals", the second volume in the Crum Trilogy.  That review had been posted in late December 2017.  During the intervening time since I had posted my first review of Lee Maynard's work, I had also read, but not written about "Magnetic North" and "Cinco Becknell", his last two published works.  I have managed to actually read every published book written by Maynard except his first, "Outdoor Speak: A Humorous Guide To Talking About The Outdoors" of which I have never been able to find an affordable copy.  I suspect that book was a vehicle by which Maynard managed to obtain his first book publication and not much more so I have been unwilling to pay several hundred dollars for a copy of the relatively small edition in which it was published.  Despite my misgivings about its literary quality, I do believe that "Outdoor Speak..." would be a highly humorous piece of work based on the consistently funny material which can be found in his other published works.  But, enough asides about these issues, let's talk about "The Scummers", the real subject of this review.

Lee Maynard

"The Scummers" is the third and last book in the Crum Trilogy which includes the aforementioned "Crum" and "Screaming With The Cannibals".  Like nearly every other published word from Lee Maynard, "The Scummers" is generally believed to be a loosely autobiographical novel or, if you prefer, fictionalized autobiography.  The book begins with Maynard's protagonist, Jesse Stone, being run out of Horry County South Carolina by the local version of a brutal sheriff's deputy.   The character travels first to Wyoming where he works for a time on a cattle ranch, reads the classics by night, and survives in the world of the cowboys.  He then travels to San Francisco where he and a friend are drummed into the Army by a judge after setting a police cruiser on fire.  As the novel progresses, he manages to stay in the Army and become an MP along with a fellow solder who is also a deeply damaged and generally evil son of general which means that no matter what he does he cannot be shipped out of the military.  This character serves as a counterpoint, committed enemy, and persistent problem for the Jesse Stone character who is presumably based on Maynard himself.

Lee Maynard Photo by WVU Press

The character eventually becomes attached to another MP who is also his supervisor and coworker and manages to save Jesse Stone from both himself and the US Army.  The book rambles around the globe much as Lee Maynard himself was prone to do.  It is an entertaining read but is the least Appalachian of the Crum Trilogy.  It is worth reading if you are in the mood for mild adventure literature spiced with an occasional major crime and a few random references to West Virginia.  It tends to point out that the Crum Trilogy is not primarily about Crum, West Virginia, but more about Lee Maynard and his peripatetic lifestyle.  As with everything else Lee Maynard wrote, the book does intermittently and briefly address the author's love hate relationship with his home state and home town.  But, in the conclusion, Jesse Stone returns to Crum, West Virginia, as Lee Maynard himself often did.  

Lee Maynard Photo by Herald Dispatch

"Screaming With The Cannibals" by Lee Maynard---Book Review

Maynard, Lee: Screaming With The Cannibals (Morgantown, WV Vandalia Press 2003)

Lee Maynard Photo by Huntington Herald-Dispatch

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 for a time 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. Coincidentally, Maynard's death occurred just a few days before my 25th anniversary with my wife Candice and we had already planned a three day trip to West Virginia where we had been married.  I made a commitment to read some of the work of Lee Maynard based on some positive comments my friend, Cat Pleska, had made in an obituary which was published in the Huntington Herald Dispatch the week of his death.  Luckily, the first of his books which I read was "The Pale Light of Sunset: Scattershots and Hallucinations In An Imagined Life", a collection of essays and selections from other books which I consider to be some of his best work.  It also lacks much of the negative discussion of West Virginia and Appalachia which is prevalent in much of his other work including "Screaming With The Cannibals" which is actually the work we are discussing in this review.  I will repeat my prior statements and say that I might well have not read any more of his work if "Crum" had been the first of his books to receive my attention.  

"Screaming With The Cannibals" is the second work in the "Crum" trilogy which has generally been conceded to be fictionalized autobiography.  As the novel opens, the protagonist, Jesse, is hitchhiking out of Crum, West Virginia, Maynard's home town on the banks of the Tug River.  I will also repeat my disclosure from earlier blog posts that I know that area quite well since I lived for about five years in Williamson and Logan in Mingo and Logan Counties and worked that entire time as a door to door salesman in nearly a dozen counties in Southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky on both sides of the Tug River.  Maynard's character leaves Crum to be picked up by a man driving a farm truck across the bridge on the two states' border at Williamson.  It is a bridge I crossed countless thousands of times.  Jesse is offered a job on the Kentucky farm on which his newly met friend is employed.

Lee Maynard Photo by WVU Press

Maynard's tendency to disparage West Virginia is spread equally well over Kentucky during the time the character is working there.  But somehow, I have managed to overlook Maynard's attacks on Appalachia based on the quality of much of his writing.  His work is well worth reading.  It falls short of great literature but it is genuine literature and deserves its place in the pantheon of Appalachian Literature.  The thought has suddenly occurred to me that I might have come to appreciate Lee Maynard for the same reasons that, as a mental health and substance abuse therapist, I was a fan of the Gestalt Therapy of Fritz Perls.  Both men and their works tend to raise the ire of many of their readers.  They generate reactions which are impossible to conceal.  They are cathartic.  The title of "Screaming With The Cannibals" comes from Maynard's discussion of some fundamentalist or Pentecostal  religious believers with which his character interacts in the novel.  I also must disclose that I have spent numerous hours in the company, the homes, and the churches of serpent handling believers in Appalachia and understand Pentecostalism and Holiness religion quite well.

Lee Maynard Photo by Herald Dispatch

Jesse becomes involved with the wife of a neighbor who lives near his employer.  The employer has previously given Jesse an aged and abandoned motorcycle which a former farm hand left in his barn.  As the affair becomes common knowledge, Jesse manages to get the motorcycle to run and leaves Kentucky for coastal South Carolina where he is befriended by the residents of a small African American community.  This section of the novel exposes the reader to two subjects about which Maynard often produces his best work: sex scenes and motorcycles.  The protagonist and the housewife have a highly unusual encounter on a running farm tractor and the character leaves Kentucky riding an aged and limping motorcycle.  Life in South Carolina also goes awry involving conflict with a local personification of the old fashioned, abusive, and dangerous small town police officer and Jesse heads west. The conflict with the South Carolina law man is precipitated in large part due to the local racism and Jesse's close relationships with the African Americans. In this section, Maynard takes a clear stand against racism and discrimination and is probably the most political writing in his entire body of work.

In some ways, this book will inflame the devout Appalachian loyalist.  But it will also have moments that make you glad you read it.  Take it on with an open mind, read it and the other two portions of the "Crum" trilogy in sequence, maintain an impartial attitude, and take me at my word that if you read enough of Maynard's works you will come to understand that, in spite of his periodic defamation of West Virginia and Appalachia, he did actually love the state and the region.  But it was a love, like that of many family members toward each other, which was based on a lifetime of interactions not all of which had been positive.  But Lee Maynard did, in my professional opinion, long for a family dinner on the holidays somewhere in Southern West Virginia and did, in actuality, sometimes ride his motorcycle home from the Desert Southwest to visit his home state.  He always attended the annual West Virginia Writers Conference and was well respected by those who knew him well in Appalachia.  He did think of himself as a West Virginian.  So should you!

"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.       

"The Pale Light Of Sunset Scattershots and Hallucinations in an Imagined Life" by Lee Maynard--Book Review

Maynard, Lee: The Pale Light of Sunset Scattershots and Hallucinations in an Imagined Life (Morgantown, WV Vandalia Press 2009)

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 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.

Lee Maynard Photo By Huntington Herald Dispatch

First and foremost, let me say that I am a strong proponent of the idea that everyone alive should read at least one banned book a year.  If you can't read at least one book which has been banned, then read at least one book a year by an author who has had work banned.  Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of expression are some of the most important freedoms available to citizens of a democracy.  They should be cherished, protected, and utilized on a daily basis by every citizen of such a democracy.  With that in mind, along with the positive recommendation of Cat Pleska, I decided to read some of Lee Maynard's works.  It was a wise and rewarding choice.  Let me say, unequivocally, the man could write.  He could also live.  He lived well.  He lived loudly. He lived dangerously.  He cherished ever day he was given on this earth and he used them to the best of his ability to achieve many of the things of which he dreamed and to which he aspired.  Lee Maynard, in his best moments, wrote fine, lyrical literature which sings, whispers, chants, and sometimes roars off the pages. 

Lee Maynard Photo by WVU Press

"The Pale Light of Sunset..." is a memoir although it has been sometimes called a work of fiction or quasi-fiction.  One of the quotations which Maynard chose to use on the frontispiece states: "All stories are true, if they are well written. The question is what they are telling the truth about. Lee Kinder."   In that quote lies a riddle which the astute reader of this book finds herself attempting to answer.  Is it fiction?  Is it fact, memoir, autobiography?  Is it a little of both?  I subscribe to the idea that it is a little of both.  I believe that Lee Maynard, like most of us, wanted the world to know about his most cherished memories, his greatest achievements, and his greatest loves.  I also believe that Lee Maynard, like most of us, had a tendency to stretch the truth a bit.  As we live and move farther away from key events in our lives, they tend to grow in our hearts and memory.  They tend, sometimes, to become bigger than reality.  And, in reality, many of the events in Lee Maynard's life were already mighty big.  He rode a motorcycle from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Arctic Circle more than 4,000 miles away in September when the icy claws of  an Arctic winter were already attempting to grasp at the living beings in the great white north.  He climbed mountains even late in his life.  He survived a serious storm in a kayak in the Sea of Cortez which left him stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast. Lee Maynard also published eight books in his life, a feat that most aspiring writers only fantasize about.  Late in life, Lee Maynard returned to that island in the Sea of Cortez to answer unspoken questions he must have had.  On that return, he found himself sharing a meal with a total stranger, a Mexican fisherman who invited him to a fire, part of a large yellow tail, half of a Coke bottle full of coffee, and some reflections on life from a stranger and a poor man.  In return, as they parted, Lee Maynard threw the man a custom fillet knife saying "this is not in payment for the dinner.  It is just time for the knife to have a new owner."  The book is full of moments like that which show us a side of Lee Maynard which contradicts all the negative publicity he ever generated with whatever it is he said about Crum, West Virginia, and Appalachia in his other works. 

Lee Maynard Photo by Herald Dispatch

"The Pale Light of Sunset..." is a collection of autobiographical essays ranging from less than a page to more than twenty.  Like the work of any author who writes essays, some of them  are better than the rest.  Some are quite ordinary.  Some border on greatness.  When Lee Maynard was writing at his best, his work was rewarding, stunning, shimmering, and fulfilling.  There is one particular essay in the book which I must insist is a love song to West Virginia, the same West Virginia which produced a writer who wanted to leave her with all his heart also became a man who loved to return to her, loved to seek peace, solitude, and enlightenment in her mountains and streams.  "An Arrow In The Light" is a wonderfully written, glowing piece of work which tells the reader, without a doubt, that Lee Maynard loved to return each year to one quiet farm and one powerful friendship in the mountains of the Mountain State.  Any man who rode a motorcycle from Santa Fe to Central West Virginia could not have been motivated by hate for his destination.

"The Pale Light of Sunset..." is a book which has a cherished place in the literature of West Virginia and Appalachia.  It is a book which every student of Appalachian literature should read.  It will reward you.  It will fulfill you.  It will warm the cockles of your heart.  I am especially grateful that I chose to read this book by an author whose previous work was banned in West Virginia.  You will be too.  I sincerely wish I could have known Lee Maynard.  I realize that at times there was an abrasive edge to his personality.  There is one to mine also.  But I would have loved to sit beside a camp fire on a quiet West Virginia mountain in the silence of a spring night and share a meal and a few tales with Lee Maynard