West Virginia University Press has published The Scummers by Lee Maynard. In this third and final part of the _Crum trilogy, protagonist Jesse Stone heads West, looking to experience anything that will fulfill his intrinsic desires to escape and to belong.

He ends up in California, where he mischievously fights and drinks and soon finds himself arrested and condemned to serve out his sentence under the supervision of the U.S. Army. Suddenly Jesse Stone can no longer run. Suddenly Jesse Stone is a soldier. Full of intense violence and cutting humor, this tale is the culminating confession of a young man who has wandered from a small town in West Virginia and back again in the hopes of finding his home.

In addition to the publication of The Scummers, WVU Press has released new editions of Crum and Screaming with the Cannibals, parts one and two of the trilogy. A signed Collector’s Edition of The Scummers is also available.

Lee Maynard was born and raised in the ridges and mountains of West Virginia, an upbringing that darkens and shapes much of his writing. His work has appeared in such publications as Columbia Review of Literature, Kestrel, Reader’s Digest, The Saturday Review, Rider Magazine, The Washington Post, Country America, and The Christian Science Monitor. Maynard gained public and literary attention for his depiction of adolescent life in a rural mining town in his first novel Crum and received a Literary Fellowship in Fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts to complete Screaming with the Cannibals. Maynard serves as President and CEO of The Storehouse, an independently funded, nonprofit food pantry in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He received the 2008 Turquoise Chalice Award in honor of his dedication to this organization.

The Scummers is published by West Virginia University Press. To learn more about or to purchase this book or any WVU Press title, visit www.wvupress.com or phone (800) 621-2736.

Now complete: the Crum trilogy

The Scummers
PB: 978-1-935978-47-3/$16.99
Collector’s Edition: 978-1-935978-53-4/$29.99

Screaming with the Cannibals
PB: 978-1-935978-49-7/$16.99

Crum
PB: 978-1-935978-50-3/$16.99

-WVU-

CONTACT: Abby Freeland, Marketing Manager at West Virginia University Press
304-293-8400×6, abby.freeland@mail.wvu.edu

Follow @WVUToday on Twitter.