Departing from Appalachia's 150-year-old literary legacy of formula and caricature, West Virginia native Ann Pancake uses the texture of language, an intense attention to place, and complexity of characterization to recreate the region -- its tragic history and fragile culture, the interior landscapes of its people, and their deep rootedness in a threatened land. Her characters, already marginalized economically and socially, confront what many perceive as an invading outside culture, enduring and at times transcending the loss of their "place," both literally and figuratively. Their stories undermine the assumption that just because people don't articulate what happens inside them, nothing much is happening at all.

Given Ground

Literature & Fiction

Pancake, Ann

Short Stories & Anthologies

Middlebury College Pr

Contemporary

University Press of New England

Set in present day West Virginia, Ann Pancake’s debut novel, Strange As This Weather Has Been, tells the story of a coal mining familya couple and their four childrenliving through the latest mining boom and dealing with the mountaintop removal and strip mining that is ruining what is left of their mountain life. As the mine turns the mountains to slag and wastewater, workers struggle with layoffs and children find adventure in the blasted moonscape craters. Strange As This Weather Has Been follows several members of the family, with a particular focus on fifteen-year-old Bant and her mother, Lace. Working at a scab” motel, Bant becomes involved with a young miner while her mother contemplates joining the fight against the mining companies. As domestic conflicts escalate at home, the children are pushed more and more outside among junk from the floods and felled trees in the hollowsthe only nature they have ever known. But Bant has other memories and is as curious and strong-willed as her mother, and ultimately comes to discover the very real threat of destruction that looms as much in the landscape as it does at home.

Strange as This Weather Has Been: A Novel

United States

Shoemaker Hoard

Ann Pancake’s 2007 novel Strange As This Weather Has Been exposed the devastating fallout of mountaintop removal mining on a single West Virginia family. In Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley, a follow-up collection of eleven astonishing novellas and short stories, Pancake again features characters who are intensely connected to their land--sometimes through love, sometimes through hate--and who experience brokenness and loss, redemption and revelation, often through their relationships to places under siege. Retired strip miners find themselves victimized by the industry that supported them; a family breaks down along generation lines over a fracking lease; children transcend addict parents and adult suicide; an urban woman must confront her skepticism about worlds behind this one when she finds bones through a mysterious force she can’t name. Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley explores poverty, class, environmental breakdown and social collapse while also affirming the world’s sacredness. Ann Pancake’s ear for the Appalachian dialect is both pitch-perfect and respectful, that of one who writes from the heart of this world. Her firsthand knowledge of her rural place and her exquisite depictions of the intricacies of families may remind one of Alice Munro.

Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley: Novellas and Stories

Counterpoint

Ann Pancake’s 2007 novel Strange As This Weather Has Been exposed the devastating fallout of mountaintop removal mining on a single West Virginia family. In Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley, a follow-up collection of eleven astonishing novellas and short stories, Pancake again features characters who are intensely connected to their land--sometimes through love, sometimes through hate--and who experience brokenness and loss, redemption and revelation, often through their relationships to places under siege. Retired strip miners find themselves victimized by the industry that supported them; a family breaks down along generation lines over a fracking lease; children transcend addict parents and adult suicide; an urban woman must confront her skepticism about worlds behind this one when she finds bones through a mysterious force she can’t name. Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley explores poverty, class, environmental breakdown and social collapse while also affirming the world’s sacredness. Ann Pancake’s ear for the Appalachian dialect is both pitch-perfect and respectful, that of one who writes from the heart of this world. Her firsthand knowledge of her rural place and her exquisite depictions of the intricacies of families may remind one of Alice Munro. Her intimate depiction of the natural history of West Virginia brings to mind Wendell Berry’s Kentucky and Rick Bass’s Montana.

An anthology of new short fiction by award-winning and emerging authors, this intimate collection celebrates writing and honors the writer. The editors-two sisters from Oregon-choose stories that are beautifully written, readable, and emotionally affecting. Each collection is also visually satisfying with handsome cover art and story illustrations, and unusual author profiles. Excerpts can be found at glimmertrain.com, but please place your orders here with Amazon.

Glimmer Train Stories: Number 39

Dowd, Siobhan

Rader, Mark

Baxter, Charles

Varni, Gerard

Rawlins, Paul

Lay, U Pa Pa

Costello, Rita

Thomas, Randolph

Waisman, Sergio Gabriel

Zaw., U Lu

Drever, Tiffany

Cohenk, Aaron

Glimmer Train Pr Inc

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Books by Pancake, Ann