Crum: The Novel

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious, bittersweet, hardcore West Virginia
Review: A hilarious, bittersweet saga of growing up in hardcore West Virginia. Crum isn't in the gentle mountains those of us who live here love, but a played-out, bleak wasteland locked in the heart of what used to be productive coal country. It is the dark West Virginia whose existence we like to deny. In Lee Maynard's Crum, the high school is the single bastion of hope and the single hope for living well is to get out of Crum. I first visited Crum a few weeks ago and began longing for my longlost copy of the book, first read, then read aloud to friends, then loaned away. The meatwagon chapter ranks as great American literature and I can't think why I've never seen it in an anthology. Would that another printing came about...

Rating:
Summary: A Backwoods Christmas Story?
Review: Crum is one twisted little novel. Actually, it's less a novel than a collection of vignettes about the (non-fictional) coal-mining ghost town of Crum, WV, and the author's (presumably fictional) experiences growing up. After a long and tedious chapter of setup, Maynard takes off. He wears his Jean Shepherd influence on his sleeve a bit much in places, but there are far worse authors in this vein by whom to be influenced. As such, Crum tends to read like In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash with a bubbling cauldron of Freudian influence and a little A Man Called Horse for good measure. The whole thing is front-to-back delicious.

Rating:
Summary: You MUST Read This Book!!!
Review: I first heard of Lee Maynard while listening to his interview with Terry Gross on NPR. I grew up in Chattaroy, not far from Crum - so, I was compelled to read the book. Even though I grew up there in the 1970s and 1980s, little had changed from the time in which the book was set. We were more mobile, but fundamentally, the same time and place. We did the same things and had as much fun, as many fights and forged enough friendships and memories to last a lifetime. It was a walk down memory lane and a fantastic journey for anyone. Read the book!!!
I've ordered Cannibals - now that I've finished Crum - I can't wait for it to arrive. I'll check back in with a proper review later.

A special thanks to Lee Maynard for pulling those memories back into my present.

Rating:
Summary: An Honest, Funny Portrayal, Not a Betrayal
Review: I found CRUM while skimming through the Appalachian Lit section in the Trans Allegheny Bookstore in Parkersburg, West Virginia and picked it up.
I grew up in southern Ohio and northern West Virginia and was looking for some regional story that wasn't filled with incest, black lung, and all the other despair that seems to find its way into print. None of that had been my experience (thank God!). In fact, I thought it was very cool place to grow up.

While CRUM touches on the stifling air and dreadful boredom of that little town (what kid wouldn't feel that way about where they were from?), it also brings to life some of the interesting characters there and provides some laughs about growing up.
I've read some of the reviews here that complain about the PORKY's-style humor, but I believed it was part of the narrator's honesty, not gratuitous gross-out pandering.

As far as some reviewers' outrage that anyone would compare Maynard to Twain: is there anything in CRUM more unbelievable than Huck Finn passing himself off as a woman and getting away with it? Try to leave literary snobbery out of this.

I've passed copies of the book around to friends of mine, mostly outdoorsmen, campers, hunters, etc. It spoke to them and they loved it.
One friend always quotes his favorite line from the first page: "Across the river lie Kentucky, mysterious land of pig...."
Well, I'll let you finish the rest.

Rating:
Summary: A really smashing book!!!
Review: I know it sounds kind of stupid, but this is really the best book I've ever read. And I've read quite a lot books in my life. I was fascinated by the persons in Crum, and the town kind of reminds me a bit of my homeplace here in Norway. Keep up the good work Lee, Maynard and Amazon.com!!!!

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: It's a shame more people don't know about this book. It's one of the funniest books I've ever read. I would definitely not recommend it to any female friends, because it is a book for guys. The book follows a young boy through his final year in the little town of Crum, West Virginia. It's full of pranks and small adventures. In a town without excitement, this guy and his friends were determined to create some. They do a pretty good job.

For a few years it was out of print, and I was glad to see it come back last year. My copy is worn out from rereading it.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down!!
Review: Lee Maynard trashes his backward hometown and depicts it's residents as sex crazed hillbillies in 158 pages and calls it a novel titled Crum. It doesn't take long to detect Maynard's extreme ill-will is rooted in his pent up hostility about his homelife or lack thereof, noteable with his constant references to his living quarters in the "shed" and the cold or indifferent upbringing he is subjected to. Just as the storyline is limited to vulgarities and ignorance, Maynard's vocabulary is limited in the use of the mountain dialect which is generous with repetitious profanity. This misplaced malice slanders a bible belt culture and propragates an already negative sterotype, leaving this reader yearning for Maynard to sort out the real nightmares buried in his mind. How unfortunate Maynard has chosen to put forth a literary value that is just as ignorant as the fictitious characters he depicts.

Rating:
Summary: Jean Shepherd on acid.
Review: Lee Maynard, Crum (Washington Square Press, 1988)

Crum is one twisted little novel. Actually, it's less a novel than a colelction of vignettes about the (non-fictional) coal-mining ghost town of Crum, WV, and the author's (presumably fictional) experiences growing up. After a long and tedious chapter of setup, Maynard takes off. He wears his Jean Shepherd influence on his sleeve a bit much in places, but there are far worse authors in this vein by whom to be influenced. As such, Crum tends to read like In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash with a bubbling cauldron of Freudian influence and a little A Man Called Horse for good measure. The whole thing is front-to-back delicious. *** 1/2

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down!!
Review: This was a great read! I began reading it, and didn't want to put it down. Lee Maynard has a true Hollywood movie hit in this book! I have lived in both the northern and southern parts of WV, and the book discribes growning up in WV perfectly! The characters come to life through Maynard's spectacular writing ability. I highly recommend "Crum"!!