I’m very happy to say my first eye operation is behind me and I’m beginning to get back to normal, which of course means back to writing!
The last two weeks have not been the easiest but as always there have been good things. I can’t praise the NHS staff enough for their skill, or for the respect and kindness they showed me. Likewise my family and friends, who’ve just been brilliant!!!
I’ve done a lot of sleeping, a lot of listening to the radio and not much else, not even thinking. However in the last few days I’ve been able to get back to the screen and start reading again. The reading has been a real treat especially as a book I’d bought online but completely forgotten about arrived this week in the post. And what a book!
I cannot recommend The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake* highly enough. It is one of those rare books that ultimately had me reaching for my pen to write a paragraph or two based on the author’s style – a kind of pastiche I suppose, but more an exploration – I had to know how he did what he did, what that would sound like from my pen, why his writing was so powerful.
I read one story through, turned straight back to the beginning and read it again. His stories lived with me. His words fascinated me – the everyday language of West Virginia, words I simply hadn’t met before; no similes or metaphors (well very rarely) nothing in the least fancy. His people: troubled, dark, trapped, striving to live better lives; the powerful sense of place that runs through all of the stories, a landscape of decay and abandonment. Not since reading Raymond Carver for the first time have I been so moved by the short story, or so convinced that honesty is always paramount in the very best writing.
If you’re interested in writing great short stories you cannot afford to miss these.
*Sadly, D’J Pancake killed himself in 1979 at the age of 26, not long after his first stories were published in The Atlantic Monthly.
“…he is merely the best writer, the most sincere writer I’ve ever read.” Kurt Vonnegut
‘…one is tempted to compare his debut to Hemmingway’s.’ Joyce Carol Oates
“An exceptional voice” – Margaret Atwood
