("When I look at these stiffs by the fire, I am looking at a graveyard. There is hardly room to move between the tombstones. . . . The epitaphs are chiseled in sunken shadows on their cheeks"). The settings include rescue missions, flop houses, abandoned buildings and the sidewalk outside a nice restaurant. In one chapter, the narrator slowly comes to realize that the pitch-black boxcar he is riding in contains another rider, who is quietly, slowly, stalking him. Waiting for Nothing was first published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1935, reissued by Hill & Wang in 1968, and, in a definitive edition with most of his other writings, edited by Arthur D. Casciato and James L.W. West III, reprinted as Waiting for Nothing and Other Writings by the University of Georgia Press in 1986. In edition, Waiting for Nothing was published in England in 1935 by Constable & Co. with a chapter being omitted for "contents of the chapter were too strong for any publisher to risk in these days of active censorship." Reception Reviews praised the book when it was first published. It was reviewed by the New York Times in 1935 and 1968. It has been the subject of poetry and has been studied in scholarly journals in 1988, 1990, 1995, 1998 and 2019, among others. Echoes of Kromer's work can be found in succeeding authors, Breece D'J Pancake in particular. This connection seems appropriate considering Pancake grew up in Milton, West Virginia, less than 30 miles from Kromer's hometown of Huntington. Hemingway-like storytelling, the pair share similarities in their approach to literature. Trilobites, Hollow, and The Honored Dead, members of The Collected Breece D'J Pancake: Stories, Fragments, Letters do not necessarily have a clear intention or theme, but rather explore the mind of a central character, giving a sort of psychological breakdown. Structurally, streaks of Kromer's Waiting for Nothing are evident in the short stories of Pancake. Another author who draws inspiration from his predecessors is Pinckney Benedict, the trio creating an author genealogy in a sense. An accomplished Appalachian writer, Benedict displays his Kromer/Pancake roots in his story-telling. It is evident Kromer's work was received with high regard by his successors, influencing their writing. While having a less direct correlation, the intricacies of "stiffs" and the impoverished in "Waiting for Nothing" appear with a similar depiction in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, both comparing