The Wrecking Yard and Other Stories by Pinckney Benedict

Pinckney Benedict grew up on a 700-acre gentleman's farm in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, in a family prominent in state Republican politics. He attended prep school in Pennsylvania and graduated from Princeton University, where he studied under Joyce Carol Oates. From there he went to the Iowa Writers Workshop. His first story collection, Town Smokes, was published in 1987 -  before he graduated from the Iowa Workshop. "The Sutton Pie Safe" in that collection is one of my all-time favorite short stories. The New York Times Book Review deemed it a"notable book."  Benedict's first teaching job was at Oberlin College. Few Appalachian writers have gotten off to a more auspicious start. Inspired by fellow West Virginian, Breece Pancake, Benedict relished writing about low-class characters, and he did it extremely well. Wrecking Yard is his second story collection. In the summer of 1989 Benedict taught at the Appalachian writers workshop at Hindman, Kentucky. There he met Laura Philpot