Customer Reviews

Given Ground (Bakeless Prize)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
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In _Given Ground_, Ann Pancake offers many things I've been craving (and have not been able to find) in much of recent literature: an honest, original voice; an attention to language which is integrated with the characters and plots of each story; an unpretentious lyricism that goes beyond refusing trends and fads: when reading Pancake’s work, you become unaware that any trends exist. She transcends them that purely. This is writing that will last.

Though I’m tempted to try to comment on each story in _Given Ground_ to do so would take too much space on this page; Pancake packs so much into each story, and each story leans so gracefully into the next. A world slowly unfolds and envelops the reader. I read all but the last story of the book in one sitting, and when I put it down, I had the distinct sense that I had visited another place—and I wanted to go back there again. This is a book I will definitely read more than a few times.

It may be tempting to call Pancake’s writing “regional”; however, that is too limiting for what she does with language, character, and sense of place. In her hands, rural West Virginia becomes simultaneously specific to time and place—and beyond time and place.

This is the first book that has moved me to write a review ..._Given Ground_ is an essential read for anyone seeking the authentic voice that has been missing in much of today’s writing.

This is a collection of raw yet vibrant stories -- an increasing rarity in a world where the "novel in stories" or the "girl's guide to stories" are the big market sellers. This is a book that should be read slowly, allowing the reader's own emotions to rise and fall with Pancake's stark yet skilled prose. More than once I had to set the book aside, only to be drawn back to a world where often it seems that nothing more can possibly happen -- the flood is over, the baby has died -- but you come away with the feeling that something might happen. That something MUST. I highly recommend this book.

A thoughtful, literary, collection of stories, with patches of beautiful language, and with insights nuanced so that you have to look for them in the patterns. The author has a gift for understatement, and the reader must fill in what has been left unsaid. All of the stories hang together well, but the lead story, "Ghostless," stands out as one of those southern literary gems that will long haunt me in its ambiguity.

as a writing professor and writer, I must say I have rarely read such a devastatingly beautiful collection of stories. Heart breaking in a way that does not suggest any sentimentality or self indulgence. I feel privileged to read such beautiful, haunting work. What an amzingly talented voice.

"Given Ground" is a phenomenal collection of short stories that anyone who loves literature should read. Though I am sure she would humbly disagree, Ann Pancake is true master of the craft of fiction. From its characterization, to its amazingly complex symbolism, to its beautiful language, Pancake's "Given Ground" is one of the best new books on the market. Each story, especially "Jolo", will profoundly impact anyone who takes the time to seriously read them. I recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn more about writing fiction.
Dr. Pancake, if you read this, congratulations on your wonderful book. And, thank you for the example that your book is for all of us who have had the fortune of participating in your creative writing workshops.

This collection of short stories should be much better known. Not only are they exemplary versions of the craft of short story, but full of gripping drama of a very believably rendered Appalachia. If you teach writing or American literature, you might very well want to check these out, but even if you're a generalist looking for a fabulous read, I can almost guarantee you'll find these far above the usual.

After grad school, I was weary, weary of literature. And this remains the only book since that I've not only finished, but gulped down almost breathlessly to the end. Pancake writes from places we're taught to stifle or deny. Controlled language that is concrete, yet makes connections you can't intellectualize. Her prose catches your breath, makes your fingers tingle, chills you dead and warms you back human. And these are good, solid stories, too. Who'd'a thunk we could still get a whole collection of both these days?

Pancake does write her region with respect and honesty, but these stories and her essays are so much more. This book has not yet gotten near the literary attention it merits, and should be included in contemporary literary studies before it's allowed to go out of print.

OK, I loved seeing this book on the shelf. I'm a college student and it is really great to see something about your homeland, amidst all the stuff from NY, California, and those rambling novels about new England angst. What I have read so far does bring it all back, and more, the real description, (porkchop bones in the dust, next to the trailer stoop of cinder blocks.) (Hunting in the powerline cuts.) But it is also wearying, just as it was when I was 12 and picked up "Shilo," the book that had just won the Newberry medal, and once again found people who didn't own microwaves, cursed outsiders, and hunted. While I know that for many years it was a WV county (my own, actually) that had the highest rate of domestic abuse per capita in the nation, their is a TON more to the state than these things. But I won't level that kind of tirade against Pancake; any WV writer has to make their peace w/ these things, and she does it valiantly. she is damned good and highly serious. And she has real poetry, and her people really do live in West Virginia. I guess I just wonder about the waitresses who aren't living in shacks, those who never farmed, and the old people who give up their roots and go live in Mrytle beach. The silent, less colorful but more mysterious characters that make up a majority in the mountain state. The heart of West Virginia has moved on, I think, from the shock that it felt, being isolated and abused (for the coal) on the east coast. It is the less dramatic shock now of keeping the home fire's burning, when your kids are moving out of state, and the rivers still flood and you watch TV and you don't feel like eating jerky. And you live in a development.
If you are Pancake and reading this, I want you to know that somebody from Randolph and Kanawha and lately Berkeley county feels for you, because you have done the hard thing, and made something beautiful. The rest of my complaits are more a lament that other West Virginians don't lift the pen.