The best, most sincere writer I've ever read' Kurt Vonnegut

A lost classic of twentieth century American fiction. In 1983 the posthumous publication of this book - a collection of stories that depict, with astonishing power and grace, the world of Pancake's native rural West Virginia - electrified the literary world with a force that still resounds across two decades.

The stories in this collection nearly all take place in and around the mountain hollows of West Virginia- a world of cock-fighting, coal-mining, deer-stalking, sex, depression, drinking and death.

'It would be easy to allow his one collection of stories to be buried under the landslide of books published every year. But it's worth doing a little excavating to dig it up. The past few years have seen late-in-the-day and posthumous revivals of interest in writers such ... John Williams. Get out your pickaxes'
New Yorker

Breece D'J Pancake left behind an astonishing achievement. He was a master of a distinctly American vernacular, which he used to remind us of all the ways that fiction could teach us about ourselves. These stories are absolutely essential reading - Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds