Source of Lit - NY Tyrant V.3. N.2. - Breece D'J Pancake

Similar to our ongoing Issue/Editor series' with Unsaid IV, Hobart 11, and Redivider 7.2, editor of NY Tyrant, Giancarlo DiTrapano, has graciously agreed to go through the new issue, Volume 3. Number 2, piece by piece to discuss how this issue came to be.

Breece D'J Pancake - excerpt from A Room Forever

I first encountered The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake early in 1986 and have probably dipped into that collection at least once per year since.  This isn't the first time something of his has appeared in NY Tyrant, so it's pretty apparent you're a big fan of his work.  I love how even in this, a portion of a letter to his mother (originally published in A Room Forever by Thomas E. Douglass), the things that shine in Pancake's stories shine through--specifically his very strong sense of place.

Do you see a similarity between his letter writing and fiction?  And what exactly is it about Pancake's writing that makes him a New York Tyrant favorite?  And has it been difficult obtaining permissions to reprint his stories and letters?

Giancarlo DiTrapano

I have probably given the work of Breece D'J Pancake more of my time and thought than I have given most other writers. And with only one collection to his name, that may indicate an unhealthy obsession on my part. Trilobites, published as a classic reprint in Tyrant 3, is an example of everything I think literature should strive to be. What's special about Pancake was his ability to modulate. Sure, he could have blasted you out of your seat sentence after sentence if he'd wanted to (don't think that he couldn't have) but he knew about letting the reader breathe, and then maybe making him sweat a little and widen his eyes, but then letting him breathe again. A lot of writers today (some known as "sentence-writers") think that you have to murder it with every single line, and they may be right about that. But I don't think so.  There's a thing called subtlety and another thing called restraint. If you do not use these two things, you risk making your writing too purple, which can be fine, I guess, but it can also come across as immature or clinical or overworked. Pancake knew this, and he practiced it. You know the whole philosophy/theory/idea about a great short story being a piece that nothing can be added to and that nothing can be taken out of it without the piece suffering? Like say it's treated as an animal, and say a certain sentence is the liver. If you take out the liver, the animal will die. If you take out a certain sentence, say the liver-sentence, the story itself will die. Anyway, that theory goes something like that. I don't even remember where I got that from or if I made it up myself, but I used to think it was total bullshit until I read Trilobites. That story, in my opinion, is the closest you can get to a living breathing thing on the page. Absolutely everything matters in there. Everything is tied to something else. It's like a maypole, or a tapestry, but with live veins for the ribbons or the thread.  I discovered Pancake in college. He was born in my hometown, and his stories take place in the Appalachia where I was raised. My young life is in that story collection, so in this way I am biased. Earlier this year, Scott MacClanahan (fellow West Virginian and a gifted writer himself) mailed me Pancake's biography and letters, A Room Forever, as a gift. It was like being handed something you were certain didn't exist. Pure magic. Can't recommend it enough. When I published Trilobites from his collection, I paid the Pancake estate $500.00. Sure, I've printed things without permission before, without paying estates, but just because I feel like I am doing my part in reintroducing the writer to new eyes and I don't feel like I should have to pay for it when I'm doing that. I mean, I'm basically fucking advertising for them.  And I sure as hell am not making any kind of fortune or selling more books because of their inclusion. That's probably unethical and immoral or whatever but I don't lose any sleep over it. If I was making any money from it, certainly I'd pay them, but that is not the case. That being said, I did pay for the Pancake stuff, because his family is West Virginian and I am West Virginian. So it's a turf thing. Regarding the question about his letter writing and his fiction: a good number of Pancake's letters are gorgeous, but I wouldn't know how to begin comparing them to his fiction. The letters are still too new to me to think on them properly.

Comments

[e.e.]

excellent! i've been reading (cherry!) tyrant all day. good, good shit.

[David McLendon]

"you risk making your writing too purple..."

I love that description, and what it conveys is very, very true. Great response, Gian. I look forward to reading all that follows.

[Luke]

Czar, that you?