The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (pdf)

Breece D'J Pancake - The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (Holt, 1983). 178 pages.

New scan. Searchable pdf (clearscan) with contents in bookmarks, accurate pagination and metadata, etc.


Absolutely brilliant stories by a writer who seems to have been forgotten.

description:

Breece D'J Pancake cut short a promising career when he took his own life at the age twenty-six. Published posthumously, this is a collection of stories that depict the world of Pancake's native rural West Virginia.

After Pancake's death, author Kurt Vonnegut wrote in a letter to John Casey, "I give you my word of honor that he is merely the best writer, the most sincere writer I've ever read. What I suspect is that it hurt too much, was no fun at all to be that good. You and I will never know."


From a letter to his mother, Helen Pancake, that Pancake wrote in Charlottesville, where he was studying writing:

"I'm going to come back to West Virginia when this is over. There's something ancient and deeply-rooted in my soul. I like to think that I have left my ghost up one of those hollows, and I'll never really be able to leave for good until I find it. And I don't want to look for it, because I might find it and have to leave."

How can you resist this guy after a quote like that?