The Rough South: Grit Lit Composition

 Pancake. Does that name ring a bell? You may be thinking of the other West Virginia writer Breece D’J Pancake and his collection The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake (1983) published after the author’s death. Ann Pancake is a different pancake, but made from the same ingredients that exemplify grit lit writing. I’ve heard the two writers are related, but don’t quote me on that. Breece Pancake is from Milton, WV and Ann Pacake is from Romney, WV. Her story collection, Given Ground (2001), was the winner of the Katharine Bakeless Nasan Fiction Prize. As more than one critic has noted, Pancake writes about class conflict in the Appalachian mountains which fits in perfectly with our class discussion of alienation. Another Appalachian writer I talked to once at a reading, Silas House, told me that at his readings sometimes he was asked about when they finally got the internet there in the moutains. ‘The same time as everyone else,’ was his answer. Pancake writes compassionately about the people of the Appalachian mountain country and her work is the real deal.

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