SOURCE: Hendrickson, Paul. “The Legend of Breece D'J Pancake.” Washington Post (10 December 1984): C1, C6.

In the following review, Hendrickson provides an interview with Pancake's mother and an overview of Pancake's life and career.

To get there, you take I-64 and blur by towns named Nitro and Hurricane. Off to the side are giant generator cones spewing fumes into a yellow sky. Pumps suck at ancient gas fields in the earth: Union Carbide, not coal, is king in this corner of West Virginia, which is down below Charleston, where the Mud River winds and the fields are green with corn and cane.

“Well, Lordy, look what you brought,” says the woman in the doorway, taking up you and your flowers in nearly the same embrace. She is tall, in flat shoes, and there is a pressed handkerchief in her dress pocket. From the kitchen comes an aroma of something...