Now the publisher Robin Robertson, who brought Stoner to Random House in 2003, believes he has found its successor. Breece D’J Pancake was born in West Virginia in 1952. He grew up in an area known locally as “Chemical Valley”, among the region’s many coal mines. An earnest, self-motivated student, he attended Marshall University and taught for two years at a military academy before accepting a fellowship at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. There he wrote 12 short stories, three of which were bought by the Atlantic Monthly (the magazine responsible fo...
