McLanahan is a must read, Crackling good prose, touching and witty, with unmistakably unique voice, The stories and tales aren't deep, they skim the surface of human experience picking up enough to make them worthwhile, but don't expect high art.
There's a newjournalism flair to these pieces, reading them you can feel Ed's timetimeandplace: the counterculturals, The prose sparkles in the way only good writing can, It never feels dated. Reading McClanahan is like a master class in good prose, You can learn something from these pages,
ah the road! What better destination could there be and in the end you end up where you started and it's all new! Memory gets blacked out, but the story remains.
Big Blue is not a reliable offering in any market, Ed is in Ky and an activist for stopping mining that strips the top of the hills, . Another great read with stories of locations and characters from Lexington to California and points in between, The description of Boot's Bar is dead on, Great read. I love reading about people that knew Kesey and the Pranksters, Plus he tells good tales of folks around Lexington and other parts of Kentucky, Ed McClanahan's hilarious classic introduces us to writers and revolutionaries, hippies and honkies, gurus and gogo girls, barkeeps and barflies, as well as Carlos Toadvine, aka Little Enis, the AllAmerican LeftHanded Upsidedown Guitar Player, among the characters he has encountered in thirty peripatetic years of wandering the fringes of the academic and literary worlds from his native Kentucky to the West Coast where his compatriots included Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe and back again.
Another great author from the "Dark and Bloody Ground, " A Ky boy with an impressive teaching resume hangs out on the west coast with K Kesey and the Pranksters, But this book is a great read, esp, for those with ties to Ky and the Lexington area, HIlarious!
sitelink edmcclanahan. com/
A lot of people liked it but I just couldn't get into it, Maybe it was me but I thought it was just a bunch of rambling stories that bored me, I'll give him three even though I thought it was a two star Edward Poage McClanahan was born in Brooksville, Kentucky into Edward Leroy and Jesse Poage McClanahan.
He attended school there and later in nearby Maysville, Kentucky where the family relocated in, McClanahan
graduated from Miami University with a B, A. in English inand from the University of Kentucky inwith a M, A. in English. McClanahan taught English at Oregon State University,, He received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship inand remained at Stanford University as E, H. Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing until, During his time at Stanford, while also known by his hippie moniker Captain Kentucky, McClanahan became good friends with author and fellow Stanford attendee Ken Kesey.
McClanahan was an a Edward Poage McClanahan was born in Brooksville, Kentucky into Edward Leroy and Jesse Poage McClanahan, He attended school there and later in nearby Maysville, Kentucky where the family relocated in, McClanahan graduated from Miami University with a B, A. in English inand from the University of Kentucky inwith a M, A. in English. McClanahan taught English at Oregon State University,, He received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship inand remained at Stanford University as E, H. Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing until, During his time at Stanford, while also known by his hippie moniker "Captain Kentucky," McClanahan became good friends with author and fellow Stanford attendee Ken Kesey.
McClanahan was an active member of Kesey's band of Merry Pranksters, McClanahan currently resides in Lexington, Kentucky with his third wife, Hilda, He is active in Kentucky literary circles and can occasionally be seen, in full "Captain Kentucky" regalia, guest lecturing to University of Kentucky creative writing workshops.
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