Ann Pancake

A few notable quotes:


"Every Christmas Lindy'd stand beside the conveyor belt under electronic monitors with the other passengers, well-dressed and cologned. Behind her, silent and just out of sight, the odor of hunting jacket, of little-washed man, and of the wood smoke he's carried all the way from the house. She knows her father'll try to merge his rust-bitten Chevrolet Citation onto the freeway outside the airport and be forced onto the shoulder before he can snatch his little piece of road. They'll sit across the plastic table under fluorescent lights in Leesburg while he halves a Big mac with his pocketknife, rinses the blade in a cup of water, and dries it in his handkerchief." pg 14

"Shane cuts her a look with snakebit in it. When she leaves the bedroom, he tries to slam the door behind her, but flimsy like it is, it makes only a shabby smack.
She finds herself on the heap of cinderblocks that is their front stoop. The block she sits on wobbles. From under the trailer, a white cat skits out, petrifies at the sight of her, then bullets around the back. It shows clear the knobs of its shoulders and hips, and Lindy recalls first moving out of here. Then most of the dogs and cats outside looked fat. Now the ones inside looked skinny." pg 17

"Her mother had lost several between Lindy and DeeDee. 'Your mother's people have always had an easy time getting pregnant, a hard time staying that way,' her father would say." pg 18

"Connie, on the other hand, is neither disfigured nor desirable. She was born, she knows, with a mild mistake for a face. Her hips and thighs have blossomed enormous, the way the other girls' will, it is true, shortly after high school, but instead of that inspiring sympathy for Connie, it just makes her more ignored. Connie a fleshy premonition no wants to acknowledge, prematurely middle-aged even by the yardstick of a place where middle age can strike in one's twenties." pg 25

"Nearly every other night when Connie wedges herself out the first-story window, suspecting nothing. Their oldest daughter, as far as they're concerned, as sexual as a potato." pg 28

"Kenny's picture sat on top of the TV for years, him startled and midgety under his hat. Army hat like a stewpot upside down on Kenny's tiny head, that big chin looping out like a gourd. Eventually the picture traveled to the bookcase and then on to the wall of the basement stairs, but by that time Mommy, too, had passed. Held on for nine months after the diagnosis and got religion near the end, but she never gave up those cigarettes. Tempered the tar with God." pg 58

"I knew that although neither one of us was happy, she'd learned not to ask her disappointment as many questions." pg 97

"Richard always called it love. Ten years of late suppers and, even on weekends, him asleep in front of the TV by eight p.m. Two hours later, he'd wake and they'd shift to the bed, the brief bucking there. Afterwards, he'd sleep again, as sudden and as deep as if he'd been cold-cocked. Richard was a good boy and a hard worker. And now he's waited two weeks, in his patient, plodding way, to be killed in a car wreck. That week's driver asleep at the wheel ten miles short of home after a day of drywalling." pg 106

"Most of this land would have been my inheritance, and I grew up hunting it, cutting wood off it, running it. I know it better than anyone still living, including the man who owns it now. Never have I seen it so tired, with the deer paths wide as cattle runs up and down the hollow sides, and acornless ground. And the deer themselves, gaunt and puny and sorrowful. Quivering under their flies." pg 113

"The moment the sun falls through, two eyes flash a flat green. Then they go out. I stare harder, but the creature's shrunk from the light. It does not sound again.
Something curls inside me. The dry has drawn it into the well, and there it starves and won't ever get out. And me the last thing to see it, and I can't even tell what it is." pg 115

"As I rode along the smooth-graded gravel road, I squinted to find the good crossing place, where I'd shot a big-bodies eight-point when I was seventeen or so. But near as I could tell, the crossing ran straight through a kit log cabin. And the feel of moving among all those new vacation houses, yet not a soul around. The houses creating an expectation of presence, then their emptiness sucking that expectation inside out. So much emptier on Joby Knob now than when it was just trees." pg 115

"The bullet only has to strike the right place, no bigger than your thumb, and like a key in a lock, it shuts down everything below." pg 134… (meer)

As a native of Appalachia, I have read a number of books by our native authors. This novel I would rate among the best, particularly for one quality - it depicts - warmly and compassionately - contemporary life in the homes of the "working poor" of our mountains.

There is likewise a powerful appreciation here for the beautiful mountains and the beautiful people living there. Lloyal Jones has categorized one of the Values of mountain people as "love of place." This book achingly captures that value with a power like few others. The descriptions here of the woods and hills will, if you've moved away, make you homesick. And the characters are strongly drawn with edges and all. Ms. Pancake knows us!

There is, of course, no answer to the question so often on our lips and in our hearts - how can those who live in these beautiful hills so easily destroy them for short-term gain?
… (meer)

I read this book to try to capture MY own feelings and emotions of memories in the West Virginia Mountains. And I think Ann Pancake and I have traveled some of the same winding mountain roads. From Beckley to the New River Gorge familiarity abounded. But no where so much as in the characters we follow from a typically dysfunctional family, especially Lace and Bant who seemed every bit a piece of not only myself but so many of the people I’ve known. Mountain-folk or Flatlanders. Strange as this Weather Has Been revolves around Lace and Bant primarily. Mother and daughter looking at life in the mountains. And the choices left for their future; or lack there of. And about just how deep roots run. Told in the voices of the family members, SATWHB switches chronology and POV but I had no trouble following where who was where when or how they felt, which was crucial. Pancake’s prose kept me right there in both imagination and memory and I could smell the loamy humid richness of the dark of the wooded mountain. The family was one million percent believable and relatable. They are neighbors and friends we all know. They are headstrong girls making questionable decisions and they are headstrong boys feeling so inferior their only recourse becomes an over abundance of pride. And I loved each and every one. Despite themselves.My one criticism is wondering if those not familiar with this region; with abandoned mines and hollers filled with trailers on hewn out ‘shelves’ on the mountain side, would really have enough of a frame of reference to ‘get’ this book. But I’m not sure those without that frame of ref. were Pancakes target audience. Regardless, I say READ IT! Push on through the parts you don’t get, it’ll make enough sense and then you wont miss any of the wonderful Because you see Strange As This Weather Has Been reads like any best seller list dystopian novel. Except this is REAL. The conditions are REAL. The continued destruction is REAL!!! I could not believe these practices were not punishable by the harshest laws in the universe what mountain top removal strip mining does to IRREPARABLY harm this precious, precious ecosystem. And it is those who still live in nervous silence that I believe Ms Ann Pancake was trying to reach… and I wish I could help her. I very much loved this book, but in a way you love your teenager when they are being, well, teenagers: sometimes with difficulty. This book is emotionally challenging but more than worth the effort. I doubt it will leave you unchanged. My Ancestors settled an area called Panther Mountain. I don’t know yet where that is today exactly, but I hope Ann’s book helps save it. And, God Forbid, it doesn’t. I will trust Ann’s skill as a talented writer to keeping the memory of those who lived the unique life of West Virginia in all her shame and glory.… (meer)