Breece Pancake
When you think of writers and wasted talent, no doubt you think of Sylvia Plath, who killed herself while still young, or Ernest Hemingway, who died grizzled and by his own hand, or perhaps Sexton, who also suicided, but at middle age. Maybe Salinger, who just closed the doors one day on it all but didn’t off himself, just got old and grouchy.
I think of Breece Dexter John Pancake, dead by his own hand (the gun helped!) in 1979, two years before I was born. Himself born in South Charleston, WV, and raised in Milton – a librarian once told me his home was about where the Wendy’s is at the Milton exit – he graduated from Marshall University before continuing graduate school in Virginia. I love Lee Maynard a lot, but if Breece D’J Pancake were alive today, I’d be a Pancake groupie, and not just because he looks a little like Jeffrey Dahmer! Simply put, Pancake’s kung fu is the best. Continue Reading →
