Like lots of eighteen-year-olds, the boy at the center of Crum doesn't know where he's going, but he knows he is leaving. This novel, named after a real-life, gritty little coal town on the West Virginia-Kentucky border, offers a sometimes shocking, often outrageous, always irreverent look at this young man’s attempt to escape his home.
In Crum, the boys fight, swear, chase - and sometimes catch girls, and have unflattering things to say about their neighbors across the river in Kentucky. The adults are cramped and clueless, hemmed in by the mountains that loom over this tiny suffocating town. And to boys flush with the hormones of youth, this situation is full of wonder, dejection, and even possibility.
Lee Maynard, a native of Crum in Wayne County, West Virginia, spins this tale of a young man whose rebellion against the people and the place of his childhood allows him to reject the comfort and familiarity of his home in search of his place in a larger world.
This novel stirred deep feelings in West Virginia, as readers reacted in different ways to the poetry and reality of Maynard's creation. Since its highly successful first publication, this novel has become an underground classic, with used copies now scarce and costly. Maynard adds a brief epilogue to this new edition, and West Virginia writer Meredith Sue Willis provides an introduction. Crum shot to number eight on the Doubleday Best Seller list within its first month of publication, despite its ban in West Virginia. He has since published a sequel to Crum entitled Screaming with the Cannibals.

CRUM

Literature & Fiction

Lee Maynard

Literary

Vandalia Press

This contemporary novel takes place in two main settings: on a cruise ship and through flashbacks to the narrator’s fictional West Virginia hometown. The transitions from present to past are well done and help the reader see how a now-wealthy woman came to her current view of the world. It also shows why she has such difficulty handling her present crisis. This well-crafted story, told by an older woman, but filled with interesting characters of all ages from West Virginia and around the world, will appeal to the general fiction reader. However, residents of West Virginia will be particularly fascinated as the narrator’s story unfolds.For more information about Meredith Sue Willis visit her web site at: http://www.meredithsuewillis.com.

ORADELL AT SEA

Meredith Sue Willis

ORADELL at Sea

WILLIS, MEREDITH S.

BACKCOUNTRY: CONTEMPORARY WRITING IN WEST VIRGINIA

This is as closely-knit an anthology as you are ever likely to see. It is as though a large, extended family were drawing on the same store of family stories, jokes, symbols, landscapes, animals, trees, language, and vernacular. How many snakes are in this book? How many foxes, possums? Fossils? And how very many coal mines? But it is not merely local references that unites these writers. There is a larger vision that ties these works together."The connection is not so much in mutual influence, though there is some of that, but in each writer’s total immersion in place. Even those writers who no longer live in the state remember the feel, the physical texture, the overwhelming and enfolding vegetal surround of the place." Editor, Irene McKinney

MCKINNEY, IRENE

United States

This is as closely-knit an anthology as you are ever likely to see. It is as though a large, extended family were drawing on the same store of family stories, jokes, symbols, landscapes, animals, trees, language, and vernacular. How many snakes are in this book? How many foxes, possums? Fossils? And how very many coal mines? But it is not merely local references that unites these writers. There is a larger vision that ties these works together.
"The connection is not so much in mutual influence, though there is some of that, but in each writer’s total immersion in place. Even those writers who no longer live in the state remember the feel, the physical texture, the overwhelming and enfolding vegetal surround of the place." Editor, Irene McKinney

Nationally-recognized nature photographer Jim Clark invites you along as he explores his favorite wild place, West Virginia. This is a big, startlingly beautiful photography book, but it's also more. It's an introduction to the joy of observing and understanding the rhythm of nature, from creeping mosses to soaring ravens. Reading Clark's loving memories will remind you of your own special outdoor experiences, and send you out for more. For the past twenty-seven years, Jim Clark has been an award-winning and nationally recognized nature photographer and writer. His articles and images have appeared in magazines such as Outdoor Photographer, Nature’s Best, Wonderful West Virginia, Birders World, Country, Wild Bird, and Outdoor & Nature Photographer. A native of War, West Virginia, Jim is the author and photographer of West Virginia: The Allegheny Highlands. He is a past president of the North American Nature Photography Association and a recipient of that organization's Outstanding Recognition Award.

MOUNTAIN MEMORIES: AN APPALACHIAN SENSE OF PLACE

Arts & Photography

CLARK, JIM

Photography & Video

Like lots of eighteen-year-olds, the boy at the center of Crum doesn't know where he's going, but he knows he is leaving. This novel, named after a real-life, gritty little coal town on the West Virginia-Kentucky border, offers a sometimes shocking, often outrageous, always irreverent look at this young man’s attempt to escape his home.In Crum, the boys fight, swear, chase - and sometimes catch girls, and have unflattering things to say about their neighbors across the river in Kentucky. The adults are cramped and clueless, hemmed in by the mountains that loom over this tiny suffocating town. And to boys flush with the hormones of youth, this situation is full of wonder, dejection, and even possibility.Lee Maynard, a native of Crum in Wayne County, West Virginia, spins this tale of a young man whose rebellion against the people and the place of his childhood allows him to reject the comfort and familiarity of his home in search of his place in a larger world.This novel stirred deep feelings in West Virginia, as readers reacted in different ways to the poetry and reality of Maynard's creation. Since its highly successful first publication, this novel has become an underground classic, with used copies now scarce and costly. Maynard adds a brief epilogue to this new edition, and West Virginia writer Meredith Sue Willis provides an introduction. Crum shot to number eight on the Doubleday Best Seller list within its first month of publication, despite its ban in West Virginia. He has since published a sequel to Crum entitled Screaming with the Cannibals.

MAYNARD, LEE

Screaming with the Cannibals, the much anticipated sequel to Lee Maynard’s cult classic Crum, gets its title when the central character finds himself in an evangelical service in Kentucky on the other side of the Tug River from his native West Virginia. As the folks touched by the Spirit rave and howl, he remembers how, back in Crum, the folks used to tell him to stay on his side of the river, because the people on the other side were known to eat their children. And now, here he is in a Kentucky holy-roller church, screaming with the cannibals. 
Since the first novel, our protagonist has visited the West Virginia holler where his family lived before he moved up to the greater sophistication of Crum, and there he discovers that his favorite uncle has disappeared from the face of the earth in a moonshining accident. He then meets the girl who makes the earth – or at least the hay loft – move for him, quite literally falling for her. From there he goes to Kentucky, and then to Myrtle Beach, where he gets hired as a lifeguard, although he cannot swim a stroke. 
If Crum is (as many have said) West Virginia’s answer to J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, then Screaming with the Cannibals is Appalachia’s response to John Updike’s Rabbit Run.

SCREAMING WITH THE CANNIBALS

This fifth collection of poetry from West Virginia's poet laureate and author of Six O'Clock Mine Report is an extraordinary set of poems which reflects the complexity, the magnanimity, and the resilience of the human spirit. McKinney writes with candor, precision, and compassion; most importantly, though, her poems are accessible to all types of readers.

VIVID COMPANION

Poetry

Fidelities is the first collection of eighteen short stories to be published by this multi-faceted author. The stories in Fidelities, which are mostly set in West Virginia, are both heartrending and beautiful. Nieman published her first novel, Neena Gathering, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, in 1988. She has also published two poetry chapbooks, Slipping out of Old Eve and How We Live. Her second fictional work, Survivors, was published in 2000.

FIDELITIES

NIEMAN, VALERIE

Contemporary

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Books by Vandalia Press

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Vandalia Press publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

CRUM

ORADELL AT SEA

ORADELL at Sea

BACKCOUNTRY: CONTEMPORARY WRITING IN WEST VIRGINIA

BACKCOUNTRY: CONTEMPORARY WRITING IN WEST VIRGINIA

MOUNTAIN MEMORIES: AN APPALACHIAN SENSE OF PLACE

CRUM

SCREAMING WITH THE CANNIBALS

VIVID COMPANION

FIDELITIES