Lee Maynard, author of the bestselling novel Crum, is publishing two new books with West Virginia University Press.
The books, Magnetic North and Cinco Becknell, tell the separate tales of two friends’ motorcycle ride toward the Arctic Circle and a homeless man with no memory.
Following his novel Crum, Maynard received a Literary Fellowship in Fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts to create his sequel Screaming with the Cannibals. In Crum’s first month of publication, the novel was named No. 8 on the Doubleday Best Seller List and has been taught in English literature classes at prestigious universities. Crum was republished by Vandalia Press, a creative imprint of WVU Press, and the two sequels were published by Vandalia Press.
In Maynard’s new novel Magnetic North, an aging warrior and his best friend ride motorcycles to Alaska, with the ultimate goal of riding to the Arctic Circle. It is a ride that mirrors their lives, a ride that causes old stories, old trials, old darkness to come, once again, through the spinning wheels of the machines they are riding.
Morgan is a man who can’t give it up. His propensity toward violence has followed him through all the days of his life, and it follows him now.
Slade has shared much of Morgan’s life, and he has been the one of the rare stabilizing factors in that life. Without Slade, it is clear that Morgan has no guidance, no goals, and no potential for living much longer than his next encounter with … almost anything.
And so the two old friends ride out from New Mexico and Colorado—heading north.
Chuck Kinder, author of Last Mountain Dancer: Hard-Earned Lessons in Love, Loss, and Honky-Tonk Outlaw Life calls Magnetic North “A spooky, beautiful dream of a novel.”
Gary Fincke, author of The Proper Words for Sin and A Room of Rain, says “Once ‘on the road,’ Maynard’s characters make us want to follow them as far North as their endurance will take us.”
Doug Van Gundy, author of A Life Above Water declares, “If Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had been written by Edward Abbey, it would be Lee Maynard’s Magnetic North.”
Maynard’s second novel to be released this month is Cinco Becknell, about the homeless title character who has locked in the emptiness of his mind a secret, a past, which will either keep him alive or get him killed.
As Cinco staggers through a dangerous journey of rediscovery, he is hunted by psychopaths who want to kill him, and he has no idea why; he is shadowed by a woman who may keep him alive—or not; and he is finally helped by another woman who can bring back to him the light he looks for—if he can stay alive. But he is running out of time, and people around him are dying, always violently.
Gradually, he begins to understand the true, brutal, nature of himself and of the darkness of his past. But it is a past, and a present, that he may never fully understand.
This novel, based on generations of violent, local family history, is set in the underbelly of the pseudo-glitzy streets of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Kirkus Reviews calls Cinco Becknell “a fictional m�lange that’s part thriller and part social commentary, set against the beautiful scenic backdrop of the southwest” and affirms that “Maynard is a consummate storyteller, and the thriller elements run parallel to the tough life of the homeless on the streets of The City Different.”
Maynard was born and raised deep in the mountains of West Virginia, a location that drives the emotion and grit of most of his writing. He says he had never had a “career.” Rather, he sought out “day jobs” while doing his real job—writing. Among several other things, he has been a criminal investigator, college president, and COO of a national experiential education organization. He now lives and writes at the edge of an Indian reservation in the high desert of New Mexico. He is the author of The Pale Light of Sunset: Scattershots and Hallucinations in an Imagined Life and the Crum trilogy: Crum, Screaming with the Cannibals, and The Scummers.
To order this book, visit wvupress.com, phone (800) 621-2736, or visit a local bookstore. For updates on books and events, follow WVU Press on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest or join our mailing list on wvupress.com.
Magnetic North: April 2015/268pp/PB 978-1-940425-48-1: $16.99/ePub 978-1-940425-49-8: $16.99
Cinco Becknell: April 2015/298pp/PB 978-1-940425-45-0$16.99/epub 978-1-940425-46-7: $16.99
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