title: THE PALE LIGHT OF SUNSET: SCATTERSHOTS AND HALLUCINATIONS IN AN IMAGINED LIFE
author: LEE MAYNARD
description: <DIV><P>&quot;<I>The Pale Light of Sunset</I> features Maynard&rsquo;s most lyric and elegant prose and his most complex vision. Miniature masterpieces like &ldquo;Arrow in the Light&rdquo; and &ldquo;A Death in the Mountains&rdquo; chilled my skin in awe. Throughout the novel, Maynard&rsquo;s trademark outrageousness is deepened by a tender vulnerability. I was moved by the poignancy and gentleness of the childhood chapters; I was breathless during the suspense and hard violence of those recounting the protagonist&rsquo;s prime. But the novel is at its most rare and its most profound when it climaxes in the perspective of maturity and its celebration of the beauty and fragility of life.&quot;<BR><B>Ann Pancake</B>, author <I>Strange as this Weather Has Been</I></P><P>&quot;That old outlaw author Lee Maynard has really gone and done it this time. His new Tall Tale of a memoir/novel, <I> The Pale Light of Sunset</I>, is jam-packed with more action and adventure, more outlandish characters and bizarre events, more outrageous behavior, more laughs and tears, not to mention more pure poetry and heartfelt emotion than any book I have read in recent memory. And it is all rendered in language often so luminous that whole paragraphs seem to simply lift up off the page. Maynard says somewhere in here that we search all of our lives, some of us, for that one great thing that makes us who we are. Let me tell you folks, for Maynard that great thing is this deeply spiritual journey of a book, which is basically a roadmap of his never-ending quest for that elusive place in the heart we call home.&quot;<BR><B>Chuck Kinder</B>, author <I>Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale</I> and <I>Last Mountain Dancer: Hard-Earned Lessons in Love, Loss, and Honky-Tonk Outlaw Life</I></P><P>&quot;If the slices of life Lee Maynard offers in this book have been lived by the writer, well bless his heart, as we West Virginians are wont to say. If they are a product of his extraordinary imagination and perspicacity, well bless his heart even more. In any event, you can't go wrong reading these servings of pure genius from a native writer who will remain a West Virginian no matter where he goes.&quot;<BR><B>Dave Peyton</B>, <I>The Charleston Daily Mail</I></P><P>&quot;Lee Maynard's vivid and heart-wrenching writing packs a wallop that left me reeling. In <I>The Pale Light of Sunset</I>, Maynard's stories take us on his sometimes harrowing journey from the hills of West Virginia to a mountaintop in Santa Fe, New Mexico where we learn along with him his life lessons. Seldom have I come across a book of short stories that read like such a compelling novel. I couldn&rsquo;t put it down.&quot;<BR><B>Sandy Johnson</B>, author <I>The Book of Elders, The Book of Tibetan Elders, The Brazilian Healer with the Kitchen Knife</I> and most recently, <I>The Thirteenth Moon</I></P><P>&quot;A superb book. These stories of a lifetime are infused with a wanderer&rsquo;s soul, a seeker no less spiritual than what we see in the accounts of itinerant Zen monks from medieval Japan. Indeed, <I>The Pale Light of Sunset</I> is just such a narrative of the mind and spirit for our own time. If rural West Virginia is the point of departure and emotional keystone throughout the book, Maynard's internal and external geography is the Great Wide Open of both the planet and the human heart. This book is filled with surprise, humor (sometimes riotous, at other times wry and sly), full-bore old fashioned adventure, violence, mystery, and, finally, tenderness. Lee Maynard is teaching us to pay attention, to live the moments when they come, and savor them forever as the reasons that we are here.&quot;<BR><B>Richard Currey</B>, author <I>Fatal Light</I> and <I>Lost Highway</I></P><P>&quot;Lee Maynard writes better than anyone else I know about how a boy is infused with the rules of American manhood. This new book <I>The Pale Light of Sunset</I> is a fictional memoir&ndash; a kind of heightened and imagined life that Maynard describes in the subtitle as <I>Scattershots and Hallucinations in an Imagined Life</I>.&quot;<BR><B>Meredith Sue Willis</B>, author <I>Oradell at Sea</I></P><P>&quot;This memoir is earthy in the best sense. It's haunting. It has miracles. It also has earnest and honest questions and moments of grace.&quot;<BR><B>Marie Manilla</B>, author of <I>Shrapnel</I></P><P>&quot;Lee Maynard's latest book is his best yet.&quot;<BR><B>Dory Adams</B>, author and blogger</P><P>&quot;There's nothing pale about <I>Pale Light</I>. It is a powerful work from a mature writer with an uncanny talent. His full-throttle style an powers of description propel you into and along with the story. He raises the bar for future writers sure to be influenced and inspired by his body of work.&quot;<BR><B>Phyllis Wilson Moore</B>, <I>Appalachian Heritage</I></P><P>&quot;...just as scatological, just as punchy (literally), just as colorfully told as <I>Crum</I>.&quot;<BR><B>Douglas Imbrogno</B>, <I>The Charleston Gazette</I></P><P>&quot;...incisive vignettes of a life journey strung together in novel form.&quot;<BR><B>Norman Julian</B>,&#160;<I>The Dominion Post</I></P><P>&quot;..fast-paced, a combination of tall tale and action movie.&quot;<BR><B>Edwina Pendarvis</B>,&#160;<I>Now &amp; Then</I></P><P>&quot;Maynard's short, descriptive sentences and his journalist's eye for details link readers closely to the experiences and the emotions of the Appalachian protagonist. . . . Not for the squeamish, this story of a boy's journey from birth to maturity is told by an eloquent writer steeped in place and in the mountain tradition of storytelling.&quot;<BR><B>Phyllis Wilson Moore</B>,&#160;<I>Journal of Appalachian Studies</I></P></DIV>
zlib_text: Chapter One
  He didn’t know where he was, or who he was, or why he was. He stood
  upright in a naked human body in a dark, cold place that smelled metallic,
  damp, and oily.
  The only light came from a crude lamp set high on a wall, a flickering orb
  surrounded by insects craving brightness. He didn’t blame them. A few
  moments ago, his world had been one of heat and light and now he stood in
  terrifying cold and darkness.
  The dim light showed dirty walls and hard stones with letters scrawled beside
  a solid door.
  For some reason he could read the letters, though they made no sense to him.
  MING UE’S DIM SUM.
  He went toward the windowless door, the dragon magic tangled across it
  nauseating him.
  He had been summoned by a Dragon Master once before, long, long ago, and
  he tasted the rage of it still.
  He moved along the wall to the door, his bare feet aching from the sharp
  pebbles strewn across the ground.
  He heard voices coming from behind the door, and he cocked his head to
  listen…
  “I won’t do it