Lee Maynard was born and raised in the hardscrabble ridges and hard-packed mountains of West Virginia, USA an upbringing that darkens and shapes much of his writing. His work has appeared in such publications such as Columbia Review of Literature, Appalachian Heritage, Kestrel, Reader's Digest, The Saturday Review, Rider Magazine, Washington Post, Country America, and The Christian Science Monitor. Maynard gained public and literary attention for his depiction of adolescent life in a rural mining town in his first novel, Crum, and received a Literary Fellowship in Fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts to complete its sequel, Screaming with the Cannibals. An avid outdoorsman and conservationist, Maynard is a mountaineer, sea kayaker, skier, and former professional river runner. Currently, Maynard serves as President and CEO of The Storehouse, an independently funded, nonprofit food pantry in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He received the 2008 Turquoise Chalice Award to honor his dedication to this organization.
"The Pale Light of Sunset features Maynard's most lyric and elegant
prose and his most complex vision. Miniature masterpieces like
"Arrow in the Light" and "A Death in the Mountains" chilled my skin
in awe. Throughout the novel, Maynard's trademark outrageousness is
deepened by a tender vulnerability. I was moved by the poignancy
and gentleness of the childhood chapters; I was breathless during
the suspense and hard violence of those recounting the
protagonist's prime. But the novel is at its most rare and its most
profound when it climaxes in the perspective of maturity and its
celebration of the beauty and fragility of life."
Ann Pancake, author Strange as this Weather Has Been"That old
outlaw author Lee Maynard has really gone and done it this time.
His new Tall Tale of a memoir/novel, The Pale Light of Sunset, is
jam-packed with more action and adventure, more outlandish
characters and bizarre events, more outrageous behavior, more
laughs and tears, not to mention more pure poetry and heartfelt
emotion than any book I have read in recent memory. And it is all
rendered in language often so luminous that whole paragraphs seem
to simply lift up off the page. Maynard says somewhere in here that
we search all of our lives, some of us, for that one great thing
that makes us who we are. Let me tell you folks, for Maynard that
great thing is this deeply spiritual journey of a book, which is
basically a roadmap of his never-ending quest for that elusive
place in the heart we call home."
Chuck Kinder, author Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale and Last
Mountain Dancer: Hard-Earned Lessons in Love, Loss, and Honky-Tonk
Outlaw Life"If the slices of life Lee Maynard offers in this book
have been lived by the writer, well bless his heart, as we West
Virginians are wont to say. If they are a product of his
extraordinary imagination and perspicacity, well bless his heart
even more. In any event, you can't go wrong reading these servings
of pure genius from a native writer who will remain a West
Virginian no matter where he goes."
Dave Peyton, The Charleston Daily Mail"Lee Maynard's vivid and
heart-wrenching writing packs a wallop that left me reeling. In The
Pale Light of Sunset, Maynard's stories take us on his sometimes
harrowing journey from the hills of West Virginia to a mountaintop
in Santa Fe, New Mexico where we learn along with him his life
lessons. Seldom have I come across a book of short stories that
read like such a compelling novel. I couldn't put it down."
Sandy Johnson, author The Book of Elders, The Book of Tibetan
Elders, The Brazilian Healer with the Kitchen Knife and most
recently, The Thirteenth Moon"A superb book. These stories of a
lifetime are infused with a wanderer's soul, a seeker no less
spiritual than what we see in the accounts of itinerant Zen monks
from medieval Japan. Indeed, The Pale Light of Sunset is just such
a narrative of the mind and spirit for our own time. If rural West
Virginia is the point of departure and emotional keystone
throughout the book, Maynard's internal and external geography is
the Great Wide Open of both the planet and the human heart. This
book is filled with surprise, humor (sometimes riotous, at other
times wry and sly), full-bore old fashioned adventure, violence,
mystery, and, finally, tenderness. Lee Maynard is teaching us to
pay attention, to live the moments when they come, and savor them
forever as the reasons that we are here."
Richard Currey, author Fatal Light and Lost Highway"Lee Maynard
writes better than anyone else I know about how a boy is infused
with the rules of American manhood. This new book The Pale Light of
Sunset is a fictional memoir- a kind of heightened and imagined
life that Maynard describes in the subtitle as Scattershots and
Hallucinations in an Imagined Life."
Meredith Sue Willis, author Oradell at Sea"This memoir is earthy in
the best sense. It's haunting. It has miracles. It also has earnest
and honest questions and moments of grace."
Marie Manilla, author of Shrapnel"Lee Maynard's latest book is his
best yet."
Dory Adams, author and blogger"There's nothing pale about Pale
Light. It is a powerful work from a mature writer with an uncanny
talent. His full-throttle style an powers of description propel you
into and along with the story. He raises the bar for future writers
sure to be influenced and inspired by his body of work."
Phyllis Wilson Moore, Appalachian Heritage"...just as scatological,
just as punchy (literally), just as colorfully told as Crum."
Douglas Imbrogno, The Charleston Gazette"...incisive vignettes of a
life journey strung together in novel form."
Norman Julian, The Dominion Post"..fast-paced, a combination of
tall tale and action movie."
Edwina Pendarvis, Now & Then"Maynard's short, descriptive sentences
and his journalist's eye for details link readers closely to the
experiences and the emotions of the Appalachian protagonist. . . .
Not for the squeamish, this story of a boy's journey from birth to
maturity is told by an eloquent writer steeped in place and in the
mountain tradition of storytelling."
Phyllis Wilson Moore, Journal of Appalachian Studies
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