By Douglas Imbrogno | Oct. 9, 2009 | Charleston Gazette
You might start with a quote by author Meredith Sue Willis for a sense of how Lee Maynard’s writing can get to people: “Each time I read Lee Maynard’s ‘Crum’ I ask myself: Why is this foul-mouthed, sexist, scatological, hillbilly-stereotyping novel one of my all-time favorites?” Published in 1988 by a Simon and Shuster imprint and later reprinted as the debut title of West Virginia University’s Vandalia Press, “Crum” would become the most popular title ever released by the press. The novel’s uncensored portrayal of growing up in the Wayne County town where Maynard was born (“one twisted little book,” said another critic) also got it banned not in Peoria, but here in the Mountain State. Maynard, 73, is back with a new work out by Vandalia Press, “The Pale Light of Sunset: Scattershots and Hallucinations in an Imagined Life.” It’s just as scatological, just as punchy (literally), just as colorfully told as “Crum.” You have been warned. Charleston Gazette writer Douglas Imbrogno caught up with Maynard, back in his native state from his long-time home near Santa Fe, New Mexico, as part of an appearance at the October 2009 West Virginia Book Festival. For more on the author, visit his Web site.
Lee Maynard | photo by Douglas Imbrogno
Q | How would you describe “The Pale Light of Sunset”?
Maynard | A collection of stories built around events in my life. Stories clutter up my mind. Eventually, the only way to get ‘em out of there so I’ve got room for other stuff (because I don’t have that big a mind) is I have to write them down. It’s highly fictionalized. This book is not presented as a memoir. I’m well aware of all the controversy about people that write memoirs that aren’t memoirs. Meredith Sue Willis called it ‘a fictional memoir,’ which I think is about as close to being correct as anybody could possibly get.
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Q | Your narratives are filled with fisticuffs and snot, curses and bad behavior. People are always choosing the wrong thing to do, like the hapless dude ranch guy who accidentally shoots a horse from underneath the narrator then runs off. There are only very occasional rays of light like the narrator silently helping a boy build a shelter of rocks in “Pale Light.” So, what’s your view of human nature?
A | Pretty dark. One woman who’s a friend of mine said she thought I’d had an odd upbringing. The only thing I could say to her was all of this stuff is based on stuff that really happened. Maybe I’m just a guy that attracts lightning. I remain optimistic. I think things can change and people can change. But they have to be motivated to do that. Some of the people I run into aren’t that motivated to do that.
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Q | What was “Crum’s” gestation?
A: I finished the complete draft of “Crum” 15 years before publication. And I couldn’t get it published. It had to have gone to every publisher known to man. Never went anywhere. People didn’t know what it meant. They didn’t understand it, they couldn’t relate to it. Then, one particular agent looked at it and he said – and I’m just repeating what he said – ‘This is very good and we’re gonna get this sold.’ And 30 days later, he sold it. And promptly retired from the business. (Laughs.) Maybe it killed off his trade.
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Q | “Crum” landed like a hand grenade in the midst of the many conventional, sentimental reminiscences of Appalachian life. Was it more or less self-conscious what you were doing, a corrective to the usual way of looking back on an Appalachian upbringing?
A | I suppose the finished product was just that. But that was never the intent. I have never sat down to write a story with anything at all in mind about what the reaction to the story is going to be. All I try to do is tell the best story I can possibly tell. Whether people will react badly, that’s not a consideration. I don’t write to please anybody. And I don’t write to dis-please anybody. I just try to tell a story. God, it’s no more complicated than that for me. People always want to make it more complicated. They’re asking me: ‘Did I intentionally want to tick off everybody in Wayne County?’ No. Never thought about it. I did! But I never thought about it.
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Q | What was your reaction the first time you got wind some libraries – along with the state’s arts and culture showcase, Tamarack – had banned ‘Crum’ from their shelves?
A | My first reaction is that I was offended, I can’t deny that. ‘God, you’re gonna’ ban my work? Is it that bad?!’ I was thinking of it in terms of quality. Tamarack is a juried situation and I thought, they read this thing and they think it’s no good. Well, that wasn’t why it was banned. And incidentally, all this took place within an hour. I went from being offended to saying, uh, OK, that’s the way it is. Who needs to know about this? So, I called the press and the press duly reacted. As the saying goes, ‘Sales improved’ as a result of that. (Laughs.)
There’s a website on banned books, and you’ll be amazed who and what is on there. I mean, Mark Twain is on there. The Bible and the Koran are on there. Of course, we know banning the Bible really worked, don’t we? It has never worked. All it does is serve to bring attention to something that you didn’t want attention brought to. I love those people who try to ban books. We need some stupid people like that around to keep us in check.
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Q | “Crum” is part of a trilogy that includes “Screaming with the Cannibals” and a third book to come called “Scummers.” Where does the last book take the tale of Jessie, the main character?
A | The title comes from a military post that I was on. Jessie ends up in the military, much, much to his misfortune and dislike. It’s not the romantic military of saving your platoon from the bad guys. It’s far different from that… He ends up in the military as an MP. The MPs were referred to by the other guys on the post frequently as ‘scummers.’ A lot of MPs were just basically guards. Back in those days, there was a communist under every rock. So, these maximum security posts were pretty rigid. They took the MPs that really they felt couldn’t stand MP duty at the embassy in Berlin, and you ended up on one of these maximum security posts on the inside. The Army would vociferously deny that’s how it worked, but that’s how it worked. And incidentally, I was there, so I was one of those guys they wanted to keep under control. There has to be an end to the story. And so there is. I won’t tell you what the ending is. Jessie doesn’t die. My wife among others would hang me if I killed off Jessie. But he has to find a place in life. It’s kind of interesting because I want him to do that when I’m not sure I have ever done that. So maybe as an alter ego I can work some of this out through good ol’ Jess.
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Q | People encountering ‘Crum” and “The Pale Light of Sunset” might think you were hunkered over a tequila in a downtrodden Mexican bar most days. But you spend a lot of your time working with a non-profit. Why?
A | I’ve been in and out of non-profits for a long time and began to greatly enjoy the whole non-profit thing. There is normally a mission. Non-profits effect change. For-profits can do that, but normally that’s not their mission,. There is a non-profit in Albuquerque called The Storehouse. The Storehouse dispensed 3.1 million meals last year. And that’s a lot of free food… We deal directly with the people coming in off the street. I got totally absorbed in my non-writing life by this organization and became totally dedicated to feeding the hungry. And that’s sound very, um,… I don’t know the word. I don’t do it because people say, oh, you do this wonderful thing. I do it because there are hungry people. I didn’t grow up hungry. There was always food in Wayne County because you grew it. There wasn’t much of anything else, but there was always food. When I see people, particularly kids, that are hungry and I know they’re hungry, then I think what the Storehouse does is extremely worthwhile.
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Q | So, can we assume you won’t be one of these people who return to live in the Mountain State as the ‘Come Home to West Virgi
nia’ campaign goes on? Why?
A | Let me paraphrase [Somerset] Maugham. He said some people are born out of their time and place and they don’t understand why they are where they are. And I think that was me. I’m the guy, I like to visit home – I don’t want to live there. And that applies to any home I’ve ever had. And I’ve lived in some really quite interesting places – Prescott, Arizona, Crested Butte, Colorado. I knew when I got west of the Mississippi River I had at least found the region I belonged in. Is that a put-down of West Virginia? Hell no, it’s a put down of me. That’s just the way I am. I love coming back here. I get this real psychic punch. But I can’t live here. I’m not sure I can live anywhere. Although after all these years in New Mexico, that’s probably where I’m going to check out. Out there somewhere.
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Q | The main character in your books, whether “Crum” or “The Pale Light of Sunset,” is always lighting out, just walking out of his life and heading someplace else. It’s probably not fruitful to draw exact parallels between an author’s persona and an author. But it seems this is one of the animating questions of your own life — finding your place then lighting out when the place that you’re at is just not that place. Is that accurate about the narrative of your own life?
A | It’s absolutely accurate. I’ve been in New Mexico for a long time and I think the reason I have is that New Mexico does not bore me. If you’ve ever spent any time there it is one of the most vital areas of this country, in my opinion. I think a lot of that has to do with the three cultures that share that territory. They don’t always share it peacefully. It’s not always a big lovefest, but it works out. However, still to this day I am not totally comfortable. I’ve begun to feel that being comfortable in an environment over a long period of time is very akin to my definition of happiness, in that it is a pursuit and not a destination. I think the Constitution got it right: the pursuit of happiness. Somebody knew what that meant. We can always pursue comfort. And I think that’s worth doing. We can pursue happiness. I think that’s worth doing. We can pursue enlightenment. I think that’s worth doing. But I’ve never reached the destination. But having a home I can always come back to — and a home that understood what I had to go and do – that’s probably the only reason I’m still alive. I knew that was there. Was always there. I get on a motorcycle and I spend a month riding 5,000 miles. And then I can go home. I think that made all of that possible.
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Q | Thinking about what Maugham said, what’s an era that you could imagine yourself settling into?
A | In many ways, I’m a pretty primitive guy. First of all, there’s too many people, just generally, on this planet. There’s just too many people. And people generate stuff and there’s too much stuff. And sometimes that just seems like it piles up in front of my own particular psyche and it just stifles everything. Where would I be, what would I do? I would be in some era preceding this one. I would probably have greatly enjoyed the more frontier kind of situation, not only in this country but maybe some other area. If you go back far enough, the Maynards were Vikings. That’s where the name came from, according to the research my brother has done. The name originally was Magonard. And they brought that name to what is now Normandy. (Norman simply means ‘North Man.’) So, all the French Normans were actually Vikings.
I don’t know. Maybe then… And I realize what I’m saying: ‘Ah, the guys living in a fantasy world.’ I think we all do, I think we all live in a fantasy world of our own making. Who was it, Thoureau? ‘Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.’ I like that a whole lot better than the stuff. I read something the other day that really got to me. Some guy said that isn’t it amazing that you can hold in the palm of your hand a device that connects you with all the people on the planet and we use it send tweets: ‘I’m in the bathroom now.’ I mean, I don’t like that. And I wish it were not that way. But then, I’m a troglodyte.
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Q | Are you a daily sit-down-and-write-a-paragraph writer or are you one of those who it’ll come to me in a burst?
A | The latter. I don’t know that I’ve ever been disciplined enough to sit down and write every day. And furthermore, there has to be a motivation for me to do it. Because for me it’s hard. So, I don’t say, ‘OK, it’s 7 o’clock I have to go write… ‘ It’s an emotional thing. If all of a sudden I feel that drive, then I gotta’ go do it. Its almost like, well, I need this fix. But if that isn’t there, I’m perfectly happy taking a hike or riding the motorcycle. Maybe that’s why it takes me all these years to get stuff completed. It’s really important to me – it’s the second most important thing in my life. But there has to be a push. And I don’t create the push. And I’ve thought about this for a long, long time. I don’t know where the push comes from, but it comes. And when it comes, there we go.
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Q | What’s the first most important thing?
A | Oh, my wife and family. I have two kids. Well, they’re grown adults now. They’re good people and in fact, this book is dedicated to them.
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Q | What counts, in your life, as light balancing the dark?
A: Doing the right thing. As painful as that might be, as difficult as that might be. Most of us know what the right thing is. Even if we try to do the right thing I think that’s a mark in your favor.. If you think it’s right and you try it and it isn’t, you’re still OK in my book. As long as you try to do the right thing. And I don’t think it’s that big a decision. I think doing the right thing is quite frankly pretty obvious, most of the time.
RELATED: WVU Press podcast with Lee Maynard
October 9, 2009
People, Words