Remembering Lee Maynard
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West Virginia native Lee Maynard was philosophical when his
novel
“Crum” was banned in his home state.
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Lee Maynard (1936-2017) was born and raised in Crum, a tiny
Wayne County
town just outside Huntington. For 20 years, he regularly wrote articles
for
“Reader’s Digest” and other national magazines. When he turned his
hand to fiction, his first novel, titled “Crum,” was a highly
fictionalized account of his boyhood. It was so filled
with four-letter words and explicit sex that Tamarack,
the state’s official arts and crafts marketplace,
refused to stock it.
When he was 14, Maynard and his family moved away
from Crum. Over the years he traveled widely,
eventually settling in New Mexico.
It’s likely a good thing Maynard left Crum behind because his
novel rubbed
some folks there the wrong way. He put a disclaimer on the book’s first
page: “Other than the town of Crum nothing in this book is real.
The people do not exist, the events never happened.” But that
didn’t stop people from seeing themselves and their town
in the book. And many didn’t like what they saw.
Sales of “Crum” were slow and it soon went out of print. But
word of mouth made it a cult classic, with secondhand
copies often selling for $100 or more. In 2001, West
Virginia University Press, recognizing the book’s
newfound popularity. Republished it,
a controversial move that prompted
the Tamarack ban.
Maynard was philosophical about being banned in his home
state. ”My first
reaction,” he said, “was about 30 seconds of rage and indignation. I was
like, my god, who would do such a thing? Then I thought, hey, I’m in
some good company — Twain, Faulkner, Maya Angelou, Shakespeare
— they have all had their books banned at some time, in some place.
There was always someone trying to regulate your life, telling
you what to think and what to know. In the final analysis,
I really appreciated being added to that list. Ultimately,
it didn’t bother me at all. I loved it.”
Ultimately most of the ill feelings about Maynard in
Crum died out. In 2003 the Wayne County Public
Library even hosted a reception for him.
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Note: This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on April 2, 2024.
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