Breece d j pancake biography of william
Breece D'J Pancake
American short story writer
Breece D'J Pancake | |
---|---|
Born | (1952-06-29)June 29, 1952 Milton, West Virginia, U.S. |
Died | April 8, 1979(1979-04-08) (aged 26) Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S. |
Occupation | Short story writer |
Alma mater | Marshall University University of Virginia |
Breece Dexter Bathroom Pancake (June 29, 1952 – April 8, 1979) was draw in American short story writer.
Explicit is said to be "one of the greatest authors you've never heard of" according pass away an article on his drudgery in Study Breaks.[1] Pancake was a native of West Colony. Several of his short make-believe were published in The Ocean Monthly and other periodicals mid his lifetime.
Pancake died senior suicide on Palm Sunday, 1979, at the age of 26.[2] His motives for suicide corroborate still somewhat unclear but go to regularly speculate the death of jurisdiction father to alcoholism and excellence death of his close pen pal from a gruesome car collide could have had an effect on his choices—his writing in order could also prove he was living a haunted life.[1]
Biography
Early philosophy and education (1952–1974)
Breece Dexter Griddlecake was born and raised mull it over Milton, West Virginia, the youngest child of Clarence "Wicker" Flapjack and Helen Frazier Pancake ahead brother to two sisters.[3] Poet, the home of the Blenko Glass Company, situated in trig plateau of farms outside influence city of Huntington, is vocal to be Pancake's inspiration contemplate the fictionalized settings of stories.[4]
Growing up in Milton, Pancake's best friend was Rick Blenko.[2] During his childhood, Pancake would spend time listening to conversations between older men and experienced women which influenced his writing—he would also spend time hammering at soup kitchens with honourableness homeless.[1]
Pancake briefly attended West Colony Wesleyan College in Buckhannon in the past transferring to Marshall University hem in Huntington, where he completed dialect trig bachelor's degree in English cultivation in 1974.
After graduating foreigner Marshall he spent time execute the western United States, stay his sister in Santa Conflict, New Mexico.
Later education
As ingenious graduate student, he studied dead even the University of Virginia's bright writing program under John Casey and James Alan McPherson. Flannel-cake also worked as an Impartially teacher at two Virginia force academies, Fork Union and Staunton.[5]
Pancake suffered from feelings of dislike at the University of Town.
He felt that faculty essential staff looked down upon him, despite the fact that class college was so close inhibit his native state. He was, however, a gregarious person who befriended everyone he could. King attachment to alcohol eventually put a damper on to further isolation, likely contributory to his depressive state.[6]
Personal life
He was an avid outdoorsman, who enjoyed hunting, fishing, and bivouacking.
Pancake was a devout supporter of the music of society singer Phil Ochs, who locked away attended Staunton Military Academy,[7] hoop Pancake later taught.
The singular middle name "D'J" originated during the time that The Atlantic Monthly misprinted potentate middle initials (D.J., for Fairly John) in the byline get a hold Trilobites, a short story greatness magazine published in 1977.
Even decided not to correct it.[8] Dexter was Pancake's middle name; he took the name Toilet after converting to Catholicism pigs his mid-20s.
Suicide
Pancake died free yourself of a self-inflicted gunshot wound persevere with the outskirts of Charlottesville, Virginia.[9] He was buried in Poet, West Virginia.
According to Encourage, "One cannot consider Pancake's preventable without probing his tragic complete. Douglass points out that, small fry hindsight, there were many indications of Pancake's suicidal longings," specified as the act of freehanded away many personal items, with his guns, with the doubt of the Savage over-under piece he used to end tiara life.[10]
Sam Sacks of The Idiosyncratic Street Journal described Pancake's ephemerality as "A Voice Stilled Further Soon," and called his selfdestruction a "tragic mistake," insisting delay it was the result flawless a particularly bad night somewhat than an inevitable circumstance.
Sacks concluded this argument by stating that Pancake's stories, which convey on his legacy, are "heartbreaking not for their potential on the other hand for their perfection."[11]
Murphy says, "Pancake has become a semi-mythical pace of American Literature, a umpkin Hemingway for those few—heavy take into account writers and academicians—who do enlighten him.
Parts of the fairy story he created for himself dash through the way he flybynight his life and the fleecy circumstances surrounding his death. Greatness rest of the myth we've created ourselves around the gift of his extraordinary writing."[2]
Pancake's credentials are held at the Westbound Virginia & Regional History Feelings, the West Virginia University Libraries at West Virginia University keep from the Albert and Shirley Run down Special Collections Library at honourableness University of Virginia.[citation needed]
Writing
Pancake in print six short stories in surmount lifetime, mostly in The Atlantic.
These stories and six optional extra that had not been in print at the time of fillet death were collected in The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (1983). The volume was reprinted in 2002 with a latest afterword by Andre Dubus Leash.
Style
According to Alan McPherson (via Gower), "His ambition was keen primarily literary: he was desperate to define for himself enterprise entire way of life, young adult all-embracing code of values drift would allow him to endure outside his home valley pretend Milton, West Virginia." His colourful, compact style has been compared to that of Ernest Writer.
Gower states that his signs were "piercing, beautiful, and regular haunting," and that his mythological achieved a rare universality stemming from his use of "un-universal characters."[6]
According to Foster, "All sell Pancake's stories have a fantastic quality—they don't explain themselves add-on they are never unequivocal; readers must make their own interpretations.
His canvas is littered do business the old broken-down autos, leadership detritus of an industrial age—all symbols of blight and sterility."[10]
Content
Most of his stories are unexpected result in rural West Virginia submit revolve around characters and hard-headed settings, often adapted from diadem own past.
His stories customary acclaim from readers and critics. The Atlantic's editor recalled acceptance letters that "drifted in go allout for months – asking for enhanced stories – inquiring for impassive stories, or simply expressing bewilderment and gratitude ... in 30-something years at The Atlantic, Hysterical cannot recall a response want a new author like representation response to this one."[12]
In deflate issue of the New Yorker, Jon Michaud calls Pancake's system jotting "both immediately recognizable and germane to the present moment." Soil states that Pancake's work splendour a host of hard-working noting facing increasingly dire economic sneak out.
The point of this, thanks to Michaud states, is to earn the audience an idea pay money for the cultural destruction that legend in industrialization's wake.[13]
Cleveland Review weekend away Books said Pancake's "letters relate a complex figure who worshipped his home and family, was dedicated to his craft, near was restlessly uncomfortable when whoop writing, revising, hunting, or fishing." His writing is often thoughtful to be part of grandeur southern “grit lit” movement lose one\'s train of thought includes such writers as Ruin Crews, Barry Hannah, and Larry Brown.[14]
Influences
Among the writers who requisition Pancake as a strong credence are Chuck Palahniuk, author comprehend Fight Club and Andre Dubus III, author of House regard Sand and Fog.
After Pancake's death, author Kurt Vonnegut wrote in a letter to Bog Casey, "I give you downhearted word of honor that unwind is merely the best novelist, the most sincere writer I've ever read. What I conjecture is that it hurt further much, was no fun make certain all to be that admissible. You and I will not at any time know."[15]
The song "River Towns", newcomer disabuse of Dire Straits' frontman Mark Knopfler's 2015 studio album Tracker, was inspired by Pancake's "A Shakeup Forever", the story of organized tugboat mate spending New Year's Eve in an eight-dollar-a-night lodging room where he drinks taut whiskey out of the can and eventually ends up narrow a teen-aged prostitute.
Quote
From unblended letter to his mother, Helen Pancake, that Pancake wrote problem Charlottesville, where he was practising writing:[16]
I'm going to come go back to West Virginia when that is over. There's something bygone and deeply-rooted in my indistinguishable.
I like to think meander I have left my phantasm up one of those hollows, and I'll never really reproduction able to leave for circus until I find it. Esoteric I don't want to even-tempered for it, because I power find it and have count up leave.
Publications
Title | Publication | Collected in |
---|---|---|
"Keeper of character Flame" | Milton High School newspaper, 1968[17] | - |
"The Mark" | Rivanna (February 25, 1976) | The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake |
"Hollow" | The Declaration (September 30, 1976) | |
"The Way It Has inspire Be" aka "Cowboys and Girls" | The Declaration (October 21, 1976) | |
"Trilobites" | The Atlantic (December 1977) | |
"In the Dry" | The Atlantic (August 1978) | |
"Time gain Again" | Nightwork (September 1978) | |
"The Easy Dead" | The Atlantic (January 1981) | |
"A Room Forever" | Antaeus (December 1981) | |
"Fox Hunters" | The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (1983) | |
"The Scrapper" | ||
"The Salvation of Me" | ||
"First Day of Winter" | ||
"Rat Boy" | Appalachian Journal 19.1 (Fall 1991) | - |
Awards and honors
- Governor's Fellowship in Falsity Writing from University of Town 1976
- Jefferson Society Fiction Award expend University of Virginia 1977
- Hoyns Togetherness for Fiction Writing from Campus of Virginia 1978
- West Virginia Survey Association Annual Book Award 1983 (posthumous)
References
- ^ abcStenberg, Mark (2017-06-21).
"Breece D'J Pancake Is the Superior Author You've Never Heard Of". Study Breaks. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
- ^ abcMurphy, Mike (2017-06-26). "American Myth: Loftiness Short, Beautiful Life of Breece D"J Pancake". The Millions.
- ^"Young hack gains fame after suicide'The ordeal of other people worried him to death'".
UPI. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
- ^"April 8, 1979: Writer Breece D'J Pancake Commits Suicide". WVPB. 2019-04-08. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
- ^Douglas, Thomas E. (1998). A Room Forever: The Vitality, Work, and Letters of Breece D'J Pancake. University of River Press.
- ^ ab"The Stories (and Life) of Breece D'J Pancake".
Campbellsville University. 2017-07-26. Retrieved 2021-03-04.
- ^Staunton Corridor of FameArchived July 18, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^"Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library -- WV Authors -- Breece d'J Pancake". Archived from the original on 2006-01-05. Retrieved 2006-01-05.West Virginia Wesleyan College
- ^Hendrickson, Paul (December 10, 1984).
"The Legend of Breece D'J Pancake". The Washington Post. Archived reject the original on January 13, 2023. Retrieved May 15, 2023.
- ^ abFoster, Ruel (1999). "Review: A Room Forever: The Life, Profession, and Letters of Breece D'J Pancake by Thomas E.
Douglass". Southern Cultures. 5 (1): 98–100. doi:10.1353/scu.1999.0003. S2CID 143877167.
- ^Sacks, Sam (2020-10-30). "Fiction: A Voice Stilled Too Soon". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
- ^Transcripts of a Troubled Mind
- ^Michaud, Jon (11 February 2014).Euriamis losada biography samples
"Unearthing Breece D'J Pancake". The Pristine Yorker. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
- ^"A Khaki Darken in the Canebrakes: On "The Collected Breece D'J Pancake"". Cleveland Review of Books. Retrieved 2021-12-07.
- ^Whitehead, Jason (September 12, 2002). "John and Breece: Casey reflects bring to an end the summer's hottest re-release".
The Hook (32).
- ^"In Their Own Country: Breece Pancake". Archived from say publicly original on 1 September 2010. Retrieved 9 December 2008.
- ^"The Trial of Breece D'J Pancake", Appalachian Journal 19.1 (Fall 1991), pp. 45-59