Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/364850
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 17 AUGUST 2014 36 THIS WEEK FOR the uninitiated, Breece D'J Pancake is one of those writers who must be read. Yet he still remains a cult figure. Mainly because the only collection of his short stories which remains in print can only be bought in the U.S. for a high price. Luck- ily, Vintage publishers have issued a new edition so that the writings of this fascinating author will reach a wider audience. Breece Pancake was born in West Virginia in 1952 and from an early age, devoted his life to writing. He was a keen observer of working class society and tried to emulate the lifestyle of a hillbilly when he was in college. After attending creative writing courses and teaching English, he got some of his stories pub- lished in magazines (which led to his unusual middle initials). Despite some praise, he was deeply unsatisfied and by 1979 committed suicide. The world depicted in Pan- cake's 'Trilobites and Other Stories' is one of working-class Southerners. Trailer parks, brutal rites of passage and low- paying jobs. All the characters in these 12 short stories go through the trials of life, how- ever instead of learning from their mistakes, they just accept their fate and go on through life bungling and making more messes. Every short story collection has a highlight but with 'Trilo- bites', all the stories are strong. If I had to to single one out per- sonally, it would be 'Fox Hunt- ers', in which a ne'er-do-well is taken on a fox hunt by his car mechanic boss as way of curb- ing his delinquent acts, think- ing that killing an animal will help the boy think in a mature fashion. Things don't quite work out as they should and while the group watch their dogs chase a fox, the boy loses interest and doesn't benefit from the exer- cise. Breece Pancake's stories do not have closure (bar a couple) as they are meant to be slices of life. However they are extreme- ly well crafted. These stories are the result of constant ob- servations with personal expe- rience mixed in. Pancake's eye for detail is precise so if you're not associated with the techni- cal jargon of car mechanics or hunting equipment, it's best to keep a dictionary to hand. Strangely enough, Pancake barely ever uses slang or dialect in his writings. These 12 stories are raw and portray a certain type of life- style; males are tough and ma- cho, while women are either cheating on their husbands or finding ways to verbally harass them. As we know that these are in- excusable attitudes, one must keep in mind that this is what Breece Pancake observed while growing up in this society. Un- like writers of a similar ilk – Hemmingway and Bukowski - there isn't any physical violence and despite the machismo of the writing, there is always a soft underbelly, even certain tender- ness to these vignettes. Thankfully both the foreword and afterword give detailed ex- planations on Pancake's world- view, which results in an inner conflict. Although Pancake was from a slightly different back- ground, he wanted to associate with the West Virginian work- ing class but at the same time preferred to hang around peo- ple who were the total opposite of the characters in his books. 'Trilobites & Other Stories' is a semi-frustrating read and this is not due to the writing style. It is because that one is reading 12 pieces written by an author who was just starting to build a fol- lowing through his singular ob- servations and this slim book is the only surviving testament to that. It would have been inter- esting to see how his style (and burgeoning fame) would evolve after a period of time. By Robert Pisani Trailer park slice of life