The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake

Don't judge a book by its cover, or an author by his appellation. I saw "Breece D'J Pancake" and cringed. I figured I knew exactly why someone would choose to do that, and exactly what kind of stories they would write. Luckily, I was way off; from reading the afterword (or one of them, anyway), I learned that the awful punctuation was the fault of the first magazine that published one of Pancake's stories, and he kept it, because why not? Secondly, these stories aren't precious and tedious at all.

The first story in this collection, "Trilobites" is one of the best short stories I've ever read. Some critics, (like Joyce Carol Oates, on the freaking cover of my edition, and at least one of the fore and afterwords) liken Pancake to Hemingway, and while I can see it, I don't think that's wholly accurate. Hemingway is just more sparse than Pancake is -- Hemingway's protagonists seem more detached. The rest of the collection is quite strong, as well. Sure, there are ebbs and flows (the foreword singles out the gothic "Time and Again" as an ebb), but the stories remain inventive and haunting. Recommended unreservedly.

That said, while this is great writing, it isn't always fun reading. These are depressing stories about lost and desperate people, the kind who "have lost a wheel, fallen off a biplane wing, or crossed yourself left-handedly . . .". Pancake doesn't let his characters blur together -- sure, these are miserable people, but they all have very different reasons and circumstances, and he's not going to let you forget that.