Book Review 3: Crum: The Novel by Lee Maynard

Review by Carmen Bowes

February 26, 2015

I am reviewing the novel Crum by Lee Maynard. It is a semi-autobiographical, realistic fiction novel and was first published in 1988 by Washington Square Press; my copy was printed by Vandalia Press in 2001.

Synopsis

The novel opens with 3 lines:

            When all the goodbyes are said

            I want to be the one who is leaving

           

            And it’s going to be good to be gone

They are oriented just like that, no punctuation, and extra spacing between the second and third lines. Crum is a novel about staying and going, home and wilderness, and most of all, it is about growing up in West Virginia.

Maynard’s writing bounces back and forth between the obscene and the romantic. In one scene his friend blows up an outhouse and in another he is noting how glorious fall is in West Virginia. He says:

 “I loved autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it. The air was lighter and cleaner and it smelled better. Things in the woods seem to calm down, knowing that they are having the last kind days before the wet and blowy winter slams the lid shut on the tops of the mountains” (55).

            The story follows a high school boy, who we assume is some form of Lee Maynard himself, through his senior year. He ends up in all sorts of different trouble, finding his way in and out of squabbles, fighting with the boys from Kentucky on the other side of the river, and getting attention from girls and then having it taken away; all of the normal tells of a coming-of-age novel. The big difference here is that the backdrop is West Virginia and the kid-turning-adult does not have misty notions about their childhood, he can’t wait to get out, and he does.

Use in an English Language Arts Classroom

I think this novel could be taught in an ELA classroom. It has potential on its own and in conjunction with other texts.

There are a few hang-ups, well, one hang-up for the most part; it is filthy. The word cunt appears multiple times along with lewd content and some pretty great examples of teenage boys and girls not caring a whole lot about their reputations.

That being said, I think this novel’s balance of the obscene and some serious thought provoking subject matter could make for a perfect novel to teach the right class. To use this in a classroom, I recommend first off that it is fit for 11th or 12th grades only, you would have to assess your students to see if they could handle the whole novel or not. On top of that, I would suggest a permission slip sent home to parents ahead of time.

Text Alternative and Thematic Unit Ideas

·       This novel could pair nicely with some Mark Twain. You could either pair it or use one of Twain’s texts as an alternative to Crum for students whose parents did not sign the permission slip.

·       I designed a unit last semester using this text and the short story "Strawberry Lipstick" by a Russian woman named Kseniya Melnik. I used social class and home as driving themes for the unit, inspecting both texts for the best ways to incorporate ideas. 

·       Since this text can get pretty mature, pretty fast, I would say that teaching one part of the book might be a safer alternative as well. It is separated into 5 parts, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer...Again. You could use one or several of these in order to show the language without the vulgarity.

·       Another idea I had was to read Crum and connect it to the “brain drain” we have spoken about in class.

·       I also found that Crum might pair nicely with some of Shelby Lee Adams Appalachian Photography (See the snake handling woman to the right). You could do a thematic unit about the representation of Appalachia.

Conclusion

      While this text presents some challenges, it is a book about boys being boys in Appalachia. It is relatable, it creates a space to talk about community, representation, and what students want for themselves. I think in the right classroom, this text could be incredibly rewarding on multiple levels for both students and teachers.