"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!

No Republican Should Ever Be Unopposed

As I have watched the ongoing damage to America and American Democracy which has been perpetrated by the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump and the  Right Wing Radical Repugnicans over the last year, I have become more and more convinced of an opinion which I have held for nearly all my life.  That opinion is that if American Democracy, individual constitutional rights, and the common welfare are to be protected for the long run we must guarantee that the Republican Party be prevented from ever exercising the degree of power over our governments, federal, state, county, city, and local at all levels, which they have exercised over the last several years.  At every level of government over the last ten to twenty years, we have seen broad ranging attacks on all levels and divisions of government which have been productive for individual citizens, especially citizens who are not among the upper classes financially.  

In my own county of Morgan County Kentucky, we suffered from the crimes of a Republican County Judge Executive who is currently serving a seven year sentence in the federal prison system for thefts of government funds following the West Liberty Tornado of 2012.  At the state level in Kentucky, we are currently involved in a sexual abuse scandal involving several Republican Legislators including one, Dan Johnson, an alleged minister, who committed suicide rather than face the consequences of his actions.  Another, the Republican Speaker of the State House, Jeff Hoover, was forced to resign from his leadership post after his harassment of a female employee became public.  At least three other Republican state legislators have also been implicated in this scandal.  The Kentucky Republican Governor Matt Bevin has demanded that all these legislators resign although it seems likely that his motivation for that demand is based much more on his desire to be able to appoint their replacements from his own loyal cadre of Right Wing Radical Repugnicans who would acquiesce to his desires.  Kentucky is also suffering from Bevin's attempts to destroy Obama Care coverage in the state even though more than 800,000 Kentuckians now have health care for the first time in their lives due to the program.  Bevin has also cost the University of Louisville tremendously by his unconstitutional efforts to remake their board in his own image.  Thankfully, Kentucky has been blessed with a Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear who has consistently litigated in defense of the citizens of Kentucky having won many of those cases.  

And of course at the national level, we are embroiled in the worst constitutional crisis in the history of the country due to the Russian manipulation of the American electoral process which has resulted in the installation of a Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate in the White House under the reputed direction of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Donald Trump.   The election results in the South Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin areas were all statistical anomalies which could only be explained by some form of tampering.  The evidence at this time all points toward Russian hacking under the orders of Vladimir Putin in support of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  Additionally, we have seen a plethora of actions on the part of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump which are intended to damage and destabilize our allies all around the world.  His retweeting of Right Wing Radical propaganda in England has greatly increased tensions in Britain and significantly increased the likelihood of other terrorist acts against the duly constituted government there.  He has also seriously damaged the budget of the United Nations by arranging to force a $285million budget cut.  If this cut remains in place, it will greatly damage peace keeping missions, health care programs, food assistance programs, education programs, and hundreds of other UN efforts to improve the world especially in developing countries.  It is my considered professional opinion that this effort is deliberate and part of a plan being directed by Vladimir Putin under the management of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  The stated intent to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem has already destabilized the entire Middle East and is also a part of that plan.  All our Arabic allies and Israel also have been destabilized by riots and the likelihood of another Middle Eastern war have been greatly increased due purely to this announcement.  God only knows what else is likely to arise from the minds of these people if they are allowed to remain in charge of American policy.  

Domestically, the attacks from the Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate under the management of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump are just as malicious and deliberate as the international acts of terrorism discussed above.  More than three months after the Puerto Rican disaster, those American citizens are suffering without help from the White House purely because they are Hispanic and voted against TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump. In Texas, for no logical reason, hurricane victims are suffering without adequate assistance even though Texans voted in favor of TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump. 

In Kansas, elected Right Wing Radical Repugnicans took bizarre legislative actions which destroyed the state economy.  Sadly, those very actions are one of the models which federally elected Republicans want to inflict on the entire country.  Sadly, they have accomplished much of that aim with their much ballyhooed and highly dangerous "tax cut bill" of 2017.  That legislation will reward the rich and corporations at the expense of the working class, children, students, elderly, ill, infirm, and immigrants.  Republican legislators have also expressed the desire to attack Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, environmental protections, and the National Parks System in the coming year.  The Republican Party, in all its many disguises and manifestations, must not be allowed to get away with these efforts to destroy the rights of the many in order to reward the uncaring few.  

In order to prevent further such disasters,  no Republican running for public office should ever be allowed to run without Democratic opposition.  Conscientious, dedicated, committed, and qualified members of the Resistance and the  Democratic Party must step up, take action, register and run for every elected office at stake in the entire country.  No Republican candidate should ever be allowed to run unopposed, unconfronted, or undefeated.  The entire body of constitutional rights, individual freedoms, and American Democracy itself are at stake over the next few years.  The Democratic Party must recruit, train, and financially support these candidates.  The Democratic Party must design a national program of computer security to guarantee the protection of both party and governmental computer systems from Russian and Republican attacks.  The TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump has proven that there is no crime which these people and the Russians who support them will not commit in order to destroy America and American Democracy.  It is solely up to the American people to stop these white collar terrorists and their criminal efforts.  

     

Reflections On A Dismal Year In America 2017

Roughly eleven months ago, America was preparing for a transition which I foresaw as and which has proven to be one of the most problematic shifts in collective thought this country has ever suffered.  As we were rolling toward January 20, 2017, the last day of the administration of President Barack Obama and the first day of the illegal occupation of the White House by a minion of Vladimir Putin and Russia which was achieved through the Internet manipulation of both the electorate and the electoral process by Russian Hackers working under the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and in favor of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Donald Trump.  I said then and I repeat now that the best action that could have been taken in defense of American Democracy would have been if the Joint Chiefs Of Staff had staged a military coup, installed a temporary president and set a new election about a year later which could have been monitored and protected from Russian interference.  

Since January 20, 2017, we have seen a concerted attack on many aspects of American Democracy and American life.  Nearly all our individual branches of government are under attack and facing destruction from the very officials who have been appointed to run them.  The State Department is seeing unprecedented departures from career diplomats without even minimal replacements.  Those diplomats are leaving government service because they understand that the very institution of the State Department is being hamstrung by the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Donald Trump and his appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who has ties, if that is possible, which are even closer to Russia than those of his illegally installed employer.  

The Department of Education is being systematically destroyed by  Betsey De Vos, a member of the notorious family which built Amway, one of the worst criminal enterprises in the history of American business.  She is a proponent of religious based charter schools which are a clear cut violation of the separation of church and state.  

The Environmental Protection Agency is now under the destructive management of one of its worst enemies in the history of the agency, Scott Pruitt.  Pruitt's law career prior to his installation as Director of EPA was centered around his long term history of filing law suits to prevent the EPA from doing its legally constituted work of protecting the citizenry and the land from destruction.  Now he is committed to destroying the agency from within.  He is one of worst cases of a Trojan Horse in the history of mankind.  

The TRAITOR and International Terrorist Donald Trump has kept America teetering on the brink of war with North Korea the entire time he has been allowed to illegally occupy the White House.  His inflammatory language toward North Korea and most of the rest of the world has been consistently intended to inflame, enrage, and endanger most of the world.   There has also been a pattern of actions which appear intended to destabilize our closest allies all  over the world.  Very early in the his occupation (I use the word "occupation" in the military sense) of the White House, the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Donald Trump became involved in highly insulting and damaging telephone calls to the Prime Minister of Australia and the President of Mexico.  He also insulted the most powerful woman in the world, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel.  Most recently, this TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump has stated he intends to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem which has inflamed the entire Arabic world and made the likelihood of war in the Middle East much more likely. To their eternal credit, the members nations of the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to condemn this action.  He has also retweeted posts from the most militant group in England which has enraged the English populace and increased tensions all across Britain. He has also recently managed to force a budget cut of $285million on the UN which endangers peace keeping, food crisis, and health care programs all over the world.  These acts are far too numerous and structured to be minor mistakes.  They are part of a plan and the purpose of the plan is clearly the destabilization of our allies all around the world.  It is my belief that there is a plan originating in Moscow with Vladimir Putin which is being carried out by the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump due to his indebtedness to Putin and Russia.

 

There have also been a few bright and positive moments  in the country in the past year.  But they are too few, too far between, and too hampered by the inaction of thousands of elected officials all across America.  The Russia Investigation of former FBI Director Robert Mueller appears to be progressing but is slow.  It has managed to gain indictments against three of the minions of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump and two of those people have plead guilty including Retired General Flynn who is cooperating with the investigation.  But nearly on a daily basis, some person in the Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump is speaking out about the idea that Mueller can actually  be fired by the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  In the event that Mueller should be fired, congress should immediately begin impeachment proceedings but they have shown no support of that action except for a few outspoken, liberal, and patriotic members.  

Nearly every special election in the country since November 2016 has been won by Democrats including in Virginia, New Jersey, and Oklahoma.  It appears that a trend toward rationality and reason may be taking place in the electorate and that is what is terrifying TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump and his Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate.  They know that if the Mueller investigation proceeds to its natural conclusion and the electoral trend continues into the off year congressional elections of 2018, they will all be indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for all their crimes.  And that is exactly what must happen if American Democracy is to survive the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.