THE PALE LIGHT OF SUNSET: SCATTERSHOTS AND HALLUCINATIONS IN AN IMAGINED LIFE
"The Pale Light of Sunsetfeatures Maynard’s most lyric and  elegant prose and his most complex vision. Miniature masterpieces like  “Arrow in the Light” and “A Death in the Mountains” chilled my skin in  awe. Throughout the novel, Maynard’s trademark outrageousness is  deepened by a tender vulnerability. I was moved by the poignancy and  gentleness of the childhood chapters; I was breathless during the  suspense and hard violence of those recounting the protagonist’s prime.  But the novel is at its most rare and its most profound when it climaxes  in the perspective of maturity and its celebration of the beauty and  fragility of life."Ann Pancake, authorStrange as this Weather Has Been"That old outlaw author Lee Maynard has really gone and done it this time. His new Tall Tale of a memoir/novel,The Pale Light of Sunset,  is jam-packed with more action and adventure, more outlandish  characters and bizarre events, more outrageous behavior, more laughs and  tears, not to mention more pure poetry and heartfelt emotion than any  book I have read in recent memory. And it is all rendered in language  often so luminous that whole paragraphs seem to simply lift up off the  page. Maynard says somewhere in here that we search all of our lives,  some of us, for that one great thing that makes us who we are. Let me  tell you folks, for Maynard that great thing is this deeply spiritual  journey of a book, which is basically a roadmap of his never-ending  quest for that elusive place in the heart we call home."Chuck Kinder, authorHoneymooners: A Cautionary TaleandLast Mountain Dancer: Hard-Earned Lessons in Love, Loss, and Honky-Tonk Outlaw Life"If the slices of life Lee Maynard offers in this book have been  lived by the writer, well bless his heart, as we West Virginians are  wont to say. If they are a product of his extraordinary imagination and  perspicacity, well bless his heart even more. In any event, you can't go  wrong reading these servings of pure genius from a native writer who  will remain a West Virginian no matter where he goes."Dave Peyton,The Charleston Daily Mail"Lee Maynard's vivid and heart-wrenching writing packs a wallop that left me reeling. InThe Pale Light of Sunset,  Maynard's stories take us on his sometimes harrowing journey from the  hills of West Virginia to a mountaintop in Santa Fe, New Mexico where we  learn along with him his life lessons. Seldom have I come across a book  of short stories that read like such a compelling novel. I couldn’t put  it down."Sandy Johnson, authorThe Book of Elders, The Book of Tibetan Elders, The Brazilian Healer with the Kitchen Knifeand most recently,The Thirteenth Moon"A superb book. These stories of a lifetime are infused with a  wanderer’s soul, a seeker no less spiritual than what we see in the  accounts of itinerant Zen monks from medieval Japan. Indeed,The Pale Light of Sunsetis just such a narrative of the mind and spirit for our own time. If  rural West Virginia is the point of departure and emotional keystone  throughout the book, Maynard's internal and external geography is the  Great Wide Open of both the planet and the human heart. This book is  filled with surprise, humor (sometimes riotous, at other times wry and  sly), full-bore old fashioned adventure, violence, mystery, and,  finally, tenderness. Lee Maynard is teaching us to pay attention, to  live the moments when they come, and savor them forever as the reasons  that we are here."Richard Currey, authorFatal LightandLost Highway"Lee Maynard writes better than anyone else I know about how a boy is infused with the rules of American manhood. This new bookThe Pale Light of Sunsetis a fictional memoir– a kind of heightened and imagined life that Maynard describes in the subtitle asScattershots and Hallucinations in an Imagined Life."Meredith Sue Willis, authorOradell at Sea"This memoir is earthy in the best sense. It's haunting. It has  miracles. It also has earnest and honest questions and moments of  grace."Marie Manilla, author ofShrapnel"Lee Maynard's latest book is his best yet."Dory Adams, author and blogger"There's nothing pale aboutPale Light. It is a powerful work  from a mature writer with an uncanny talent. His full-throttle style an  powers of description propel you into and along with the story. He  raises the bar for future writers sure to be influenced and inspired by  his body of work."Phyllis Wilson Moore,Appalachian Heritage"...just as scatological, just as punchy (literally), just as colorfully told asCrum."Douglas Imbrogno,The Charleston Gazette"...incisive vignettes of a life journey strung together in novel form."Norman Julian, The Dominion Post"..fast-paced, a combination of tall tale and action movie."Edwina Pendarvis, Now & Then"Maynard's short, descriptive sentences and his journalist's eye for  details link readers closely to the experiences and the emotions of the  Appalachian protagonist. . . . Not for the squeamish, this story of a  boy's journey from birth to maturity is told by an eloquent writer  steeped in place and in the mountain tradition of storytelling."Phyllis Wilson Moore, Journal of Appalachian Studies