Bad boy writer Lee Maynard is 73 years old. He may have aged, but he sure as heck hasn't mellowed. His new book, "The Pale Light of Sunset" (West Virginia University Press, $23.95) is every bit as outrageous as his first book, "Crum," which had so many four-letter words Tamarack refused to stock it.

"The Pale Light of Sunset" seems apt to delight Maynard's fans, while leaving other readers shaking their heads. And Maynard probably wouldn't have it any other way.

Maynard was born and raised in Wayne County, and that upbringing, far from any sidewalks or supermarkets, infuses his writing with a love of the land and honest respect for nature. But ultimately, his books seem to owe at least as much to comic films such as "Animal House" and "Porky's" as they do to Thoreau's "Walden."

When he was 14, Maynard and his family moved away from Crum, the little town where he grew up. Over the years, he's traveled widely and today lives in New Mexico.

It's likely a good thing Maynard left Crum behind because his first novel, "Crum," 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.

For good measure, Maynard peppered his novel with lots of profanity and explicit sex, thus making sure to offend still other readers.

"Crum," first published in 1988, chronicled a year in the life of a teenage narrator who dreams of escaping the poverty and isolation of his hometown. "During the winters in Crum," Maynard wrote, "the days were long, boring and cold, and during the summers the days were long, boring and hot. In Crum, only the temperature changed." To relieve the boredom, the boy and his buddies have a series of adventures (and misadventures) that are both comic and poignant -- dynamiting outhouses, brawling with boys from across the river in Kentucky and, of course, discovering the opposite sex.

The initial sales of "Crum" were unexciting, and it soon went out of print. But word of mouth would make it a cult classic, with scarce secondhand copies often selling for $100 or more.

In 2001, West Virginia University Press republished "Crum," a move that set off a storm of controversy.

Dr. Patrick W. Connor, the director of WVU Press at the time, praised the book: "While the explicit sex and use of profanity may offend some, I think readers who honestly remember their youthful trials and tribulations will appreciate the frankness of this novel."

Connor's opinion wasn't shared by all. The book was denounced as perpetuating the hillbilly stereotype. And Tamarack, the art and crafts center at Beckley, deemed it unsuitable for sale there.

Maynard was -- and is -- philosophical about being banned in his home state. In an interview posted on the WVU Web site (www.wvupressonline.com), he says:

"My first reaction 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 is always someone trying to regulate your life, telling you what to think and what to know, and in the final analysis, I really appreciated being added to that list. Ultimately, it didn't bother me at all. I loved it."

By 2002, most of the ill feeling against Maynard in Crum had died out, and that year saw the Wayne County Public Library host a reception for him in Kenova.

In 2003, Maynard followed "Crum" with a sequel, "Screaming with the Cannibals," in which his narrator, now older, leaves home and ventures into Kentucky. Growing up in Crum, the boy and the town's other youngsters had been warned that the savages across the river in Kentucky were bloodthirsty cannibals who had been known to eat their children. Crossing the river, he finds no cannibals. Instead, he simply discovers that folks there are pretty much like people in West Virginia -- some are good-hearted and some aren't.

Now Maynard has published "The Pale Light of Sunset," a collection of vignettes in which he takes real episodes in his life and filters them through his colorful imagination. That approach has prompted WVU Press to give the book a subtitle: "Scattershots and Hallucinations in an Imagined Life."

The book starts off in West Virginia but then wanders all over the map -- to Mexico, the Arctic Circle and beyond. And, yes, there are plenty of fisticuffs, four-letter words and sex. In other words, it's typical Lee Maynard.

Maynard long has described "Crum" as a trilogy, so at first blush, "The Pale Light of Sunset" might seem to be the third volume in the saga. Not so, he says. Instead, he describes it as a side trip of sorts, a collection of stories that he couldn't get out of his head without sitting down and writing them.

The third volume of his trilogy, he says, is still a work in progress.

James E. Casto is the retired associate editor of The Herald-Dispatch.

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