SOURCE: Wilhelm, Albert. “Poverty of Spirit in Breece Pancake's Short Fiction.” Critique 28, no. 1 (fall 1986): 39-44.

In the following essay, Wilhelm identifies poverty of spirit as a unifying theme in Pancake's stories.

In 1979 when Breece D'J Pancake committed suicide at the age of twenty-six, he left behind a collection of short stories that has received wide critical acclaim. Pancake was born in Milton, West Virginia, in 1952. He attended Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and later participated in the creative writing graduate program at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. While he was still alive, many of Pancake's stories appeared in The Atlantic. After his death the major stories were collected in a volume published by Little, Brown and Company.

In examining the stories in this collection, the reader quickly notes some recurring scenes, common character types, and persistent themes. With the exception of one brief story which is...