PAX, 1960
a novel by
Kevin C. Stewart
~230 pages, $18.95 (+ shipping)
Projected Release Date: Sept/Oct 2026
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SYNOPSIS
PAX, 1960 begins shortly before a John F Kennedy rally during the 1960 Democratic primary in fictional Oak County, West Virginia. Pax Combs, an ex-coal miner and current hermit, has no plans to attend the rally until his sixteen-gauge shotgun is confiscated by a Secret Serviceman. Miffed, Pax and another old man, Gentry Alcott, steal a suspicious milk truck they learn is loaded with pints of Old Crow meant for bribes and discover there’s more than liquor in the truck. Pax kills Alcott in a struggle over a large sum of money meant for corrupt Oak County sheriff Harrison Paddock, a man willing to influence his county’s votes in the favor of the highest bidder. Fleeing the scene, Pax encounters Fayette Abshire, a retired carnival fortuneteller, spends an erotic night with her, and stows aways his newfound loot.
Paddock, working on behalf of shady but crackpot characters who need Kennedy to win so that Bobby Kennedy will go after New Orleans crime boss Carlos Marcello. The upstarts, with help from New York, plan to move into New Orleans, opening it back up to New York, which has been shut out of the city by Marcello.
Paddock unleashes his two thuggish, “unofficial” deputies on a manhunt for Pax, who’s using the a portion of the money to buy a new shotgun. During his endeavors, Pax encounters, among other characters, his cousin Barbara, a high school English teacher and bartender; local newspaper reporter Berk F Hill; two high-school girls, who give him a ride in exchange for a beer and wine purchase; a folksy African-American truckdriver; a gang of unwelcoming moonshiners; a pack of wild dogs; and a retired philosophy professor, who now raises llamas. All the while, Paddock and his minions and the mob close in on Pax, playing a sometimes slapstick game of cat and mouse with each other. The novel builds toward three violent and inevitable showdowns: one between Pax and Paddock’ minions; one between Paddock and the mobsters; and, finally, one between Paddock and Pax along with Fayette.
In the epilogue, the resolutions of the surviving characters are told in backstories that lead up to November 22, 1963, and the characters’ learning and processing the news of JFK’s assignation and the associated, violent implications that shadow them.
When the John F. Kennedy campaign descended upon southern West Virginia in 1960, so did a wild variety of con artists, media types, and mobsters. Caught up in the havoc are a schoolteacher and her cousin, Pax. Pax, who is a hermit but a magnet for mayhem nonetheless, goes on the lam with a newly met lover who is a knife-wielding natural herbalist. Throw in a crooked county sheriff and a hippie llama breeder and you have chaos parts violent and comic and poignant that cannot be captured in these few words. Read the book, which would make a great movie. ~Denise Giardina
Kevin Stewart’s novel is set in West Virginia in 1960. John Kennedy, with staff, is running in the Democratic primary. Shenanigans abound. The mafia, bootleggers, a gypsy lover, a hermit, a llama farmer, a school teacher, a corrupt sheriff, a newspaper man, are vividly portrayed, No one knows West Virginia better than Kevin Stewart. Pax, 1960 is a riveting read. It is a tightly plotted, suspenseful, provocative novel. Donald Hays, author of The Dixie Association, The Hangman’s Children, The Dying Light, and The Great Awakening
As suspenseful as it is beautifully written, Pax, 1960 is a multivalent experience: an Appalachian noir full of grit and unflinching verve, psalm to the natural splendor of West Virginia, crime thriller with an offbeat love story at its heart, and a vivid evocation of a country being born into a decade when the rules all changed. Stewart’s prose is gorgeous, threaded with cunning humor, his characters as anxiety provoking as they are pathos engendering. ~John Hennessy
In Pax, 1960, Kevin Stewart’s native West Virginia explodes off the page, beautifully detailed, impeccably authentic. This is a smart, funny, fast-paced novel, with a surprise around every corner – both for the Pax Combs, and for the lucky reader along for the ride. ~Susan Perabo, author of The Fall of Lisa Bellow and Why They Run the Way They Do
A simple loner named Pax has his shotgun confiscated by the Kennedy presidential campaign in 1960. Consequently, he ends up stealing money from a corrupt sheriff and rotgut whiskey from the campaign, and we flee with him through mountains, isolated cabins, and secret caves, along the way encountering his spooky new love interest, his free-wheeling cousin, a crusty reporter, a Thoreau-quoting llama owner, and a parade of murderous ne’er-do-wells. It’s a wild ride! ~Loren Graham
Thursday, April 28
1
The day his transistor radio announced John F. Kennedy’s campaign stop in Oak County, West Virginia, Pax Combs toted his sixteen-gauge down Clover Pass Dairy Road, unpaved and lined with Queen Anne’s lace, locust saplings, daisies, knee-high weeds and ramps. Thin and stooped and twenty years out of the mines, Pax wore faded, baggy jeans and a work shirt with a name-patch that read “Buck,” the pocket lumpy with 2-3/4” sixteen-gauge shells, lead squirrel shot. The shirt bunched in pleats, he’d crammed in the beltline of his jeans, the sleeves rolled to above his bony elbows. He’d found it, a canvas hunting coat and a pair of camouflage coveralls in a laundry bag in front of Surface Dry Cleaners in Demeter Valley. He owned no more consideration for another man’s laundry than he did for another man’s land—he didn’t think twice about ignoring a posted sign to hunt down a squirrel. He also didn’t give a damn whether JFK stopped here or not.
In the sky, disconnected blotches of large, gray-bottomed clouds blotted out the sun off and on. Farther down the road, he noticed a fresh sprinkling of red dog. The mines didn’t waste anything, even these cinders coked out of processed coal. Mines sold the red dog to the state, and every so often, especially this near an election, the state filled potholes with it on the backroads. And this particular election cluttered up Pax’s staticky transistor more than most he’d recalled. Only this morning, the news’d said a Humphrey man accused Kennedy’s people of doling out free liquor at campaign stops, a claim denied by the Kennedy campaign. The news also said Kennedy’d planned a speech at Demeter School, but Pax didn’t care. He craved squirrel meat, which tasted less nutty and gamey in spring, even though squirrel season loomed months away.
Something stirred the dried leaves to his right. Pax stopped, shotgun poised. A yellow bird, a sign of rain. Ragged patches of cirrus passed between the sun and him, darkening and brightening the road beneath the trees. Up a hillside too steep and thick with laurel to mount, a ruffed grouse drummed a log. Pax rounded a bend and spooked a fox squirrel, which darted across the road, leapt to an oak’s trunk and put the tree between itself and Pax. He aimed the gun, resting it on the back of his crippled left hand, and cocked the hammer. The squirrel scrambled higher up, hurrying along a branch, running out of range. Pax fired, but the squirrel sprung to the next tree, the branch dipping with its weight. Several leaves, shot loose, twisted to the ground. A chipmunk barked and buried itself under a log.
“Damn squirl.” Pax hadn’t eaten meat in two days. Sulfur hung in the air, and the songbirds went silent. He reloaded and dropped the spent shell on the red dog, white smoke curling from the blown-out, paper opening like a ghost escaping. He crossed a low-water bridge over Stinking Lick and ascended the next hill, feeling in his shins the jolt of his steps; in his leg muscles, the strain of the incline.
On the downhill side, rumbling in his direction, traveled a black four-door Chrysler New Yorker leading a billow of dust. He stepped to the berm of loose red dog and waited for the car to pass, but it slowed. A lone man sat behind the wheel, a U.S. Government license plate on the front bumper like a no-trespassing sign on an aluminum gate. Pax figured the man was here because of that Kennedy. The car pulled alongside Pax and stopped, and the man stared at him through sludge-black sunglass lenses. He shifted to park and climbed out, leaving the door open, the car running, a black fedora on the seat. Hair leveled to a flat-top, the man wore a white shirt and a black sports coat, pants and thin tie. His black shoes were as shiny as the car. “Was that you shooting?”
Fall hunting season a long way off, Pax considered himself fortunate he’d missed that fox squirrel now. “Yessir,” he said. “Target practicin’s all.”
“I heard you from the main road.” The man removed his aviators, blue eyes focused on Pax. “Where’re you headed?”
“No-whirs.”
The man hiked the tail of his sports jacket over a revolver, and his eyes shifted to Pax’s gun. “What kind of shotgun’s that?”
“Sixteen gauge. Winchester.”
“Good gun.”
“Yessir.” Pax gripped the shotgun tighter. “I’m pleased with it.”
“Mind if I keep it for you a couple hours?”
Pax stared at him. Two doves fluted low overhead and followed the road behind Pax. “Ain’t no law agin a-havin’ it.”
“There is today,” the man said. “With Kennedy coming through.”
“Ain’t got no interest in ‘im.”
“You a Humphrey man?”
“Nossir.” Pax shook his head. “Him neither.”
The man let his coat flap fall back into place, reconcealing the pistol. He glanced at Pax’s shirt. “Your name Buck?”
Pax peered down at the name patch, at the man. “Yessir, I’m Buck.”
“You even vote, Buck?”
Pax worried the man might be aware of his absences from jury duty after the ‘48 election, the last election before he’d escape into hiding: Pax didn’t want anyone tracking him down, also the reason he’d ordered his Social Security sent to his cousin, Barbara, who lived in Triple Oaks. He’d allow the checks to stack up for five or six months, and venture into town with the caution of an escaped convict.
“Ain’t voted since fer Truman.”
“Well, if you want to go hear Kennedy, they’ll have food and refreshments for you down there,” the man said. “If you let me hold that gun for you a while.”
“I ain’t aimin’ to shoot nobody.”
“Funny choice of words,” the man said. “But I don’t aim to take any chances.” He pointed at Pax’s shotgun. “Now let me hang on to that gun for you a while.”
He reached for it, but Pax backstepped. “Nossir.”
“Hand it over, old man.” The man uncovered his pistol again.
Pax cradled the shotgun, trembling a little. Sweat beaded his forehead.
“Don’t make me take it from you.” The man’s eyes squinted, and Pax realized a gun’d be drawn on him. He quivered, but warmed-over blood also rose in his neck and face. A man’s gun ought not be taken away like this, Kennedy or no Kennedy. “I ain’t aimin’ to shoot no Kennedy.” He turned away from the man and wished he could hunker down in the Shelton cabin, where he’d sometimes squat, hidden up a hill behind a hedge of rhododendrons. Maybe with these Secret Servicemen milling around, Pax’d be even safer in his secret cave farther up from the cabin, until all this Kennedy commotion moved on to the next stop.
“Hold it, buddy.” The man gripped Pax’s right arm. Pax tried to pull away, but the man spun him face to face. “Give me the goddamned gun.” With his free hand, the man grabbed the fore end of the Winchester. He released Pax’s arm, clenched the stock and jerked the gun from Pax, who dropped his hands to his sides, his good hand opening and closing into a fist. The man dug the shells from Pax’s shirt, fired them into the woods and punch-shoved Pax in the chest with the heel of his palm. Pax’s breath rushed out through his gapped teeth; he reeled backward and fell on his ass. He tried to inhale, but the breaths lodged like wads of wet clay behind his breastbone. Sucking for air, he rose to his feet, his lungs struggling to reinflate, each breath coming a little easier than the last. The man popped the trunk to drop the shotgun inside.
“I’ll need that back,” Pax said, enough air in his lungs to speak. “It’s how I eat.”
“As soon as Kennedy is on his way,” the man said. Pax watched him slam the trunk lid. “I’ll be parked at the school.”
“Yessir,” Pax said, less out of respect than out of habit.
The man eased back behind the wheel, pulled the door to, made a three-point turn-around and drove away, the dust choking Pax like mortified anger as he followed. When the clouds offered him a chance, Pax checked the sun for the time. The orb’s leftward list suggested a little past eleven. Kennedy spoke at twelve thirty, if the things the radio said could be trusted. Most things were untrustworthy, but a few weren’t. Pax had been so lonesome he could cry, and he’d walked around after midnight plenty often, but without ever searching for anyone in particular.
The road bottomed out for a half mile along Stinking Lick, bordered by occasional patches of birch, laurel and willow. Clots of algae blotched the languid, brown water. The valley spread nearly a hundred yards across and once existed as a natural meadow carpeted with clover, long since plowed under, but the road and dairy kept the name: Clover Pass Dairy. Low on the hills, the trees stood in full bloom, greener than the ones higher up, those just budding out. In the field, scarecrows with tattered clothes and pie-pan faces and hands stood sentry over columns of corn sprouts no higher than the roadside weeds. Spying the No Trespassing sign on the fence, he’d been counting on corn aplenty come late August, if he could beat the deer or the farmer to it.
At the top of the second ridge, he stopped to examine Demeter Valley below him, tractor trailers and cars inch along the main highway. The southeast corner of Demeter School peeked around the last bend, where the highway intersected Cyclone Ridge Road. People lined the gravel shoulders as if a parade were coming. Pax couldn’t blame them. Now that he reached the scene, witnessing all these people, he kind of wanted to see this Kennedy, too, but he hoped the senator wouldn’t cost him his sixteen-gauge.
To the west, darker, heavier cumulonimbi, bottoms scraping the mountaintops, cauliflowered the sky. Pax’s stomach growled, hungry for meat to gnaw on. The corn pone and molasses he ate for breakfast had already worn off. When he reached the dairy at the bottom of the hill, he circled around it to avoid the man in the black car for as long as possible. Buttermilk-like fumes clung to the air, and Pax envisioned himself crumbling stale cornbread into a glass, drenching it with the sour milk and eating it with a spoon.
Over Stinking Lick, he crossed a black cast-iron sewer pipe, corroded and blotted with rust and algae and round enough for a full-grown black bear to squeeze through. Old tires, refrigerators and a rusted green ‘54 Hudson Hornet chassis, cab stoved in, littered the stream. Wedged in the branches of the overhanging trees were plastic bleach bottles, disfigured and dismembered dolls and tin cans. Above the creek, clumps of dried-out toilet paper hung like Spanish moss: flotsam ornaments from past floods. The stench of raw sewage almost gagging him, he held his breath and hurried to the other bank. Where the pipe entered a concrete manhole, rust-colored slime leached into the creek. On the news broadcasts, Kennedy promised the Appalachians money for new water and sewer systems, new roads, new schools. Pax wondered whether, for once, a politician might tell the truth. Hell, Kennedy had campaigned in the state more than Humphrey. Maybe that meant something, for.
Pax followed the creek to the main road, waited for a line of traffic to pass and hurried across as a county patrol car bore down on him. His eyes took in the grassy hillside above the dairy, where pine trees spelled out its name, except vandals’d cut down some of the trees. They read LOVER ASS AIR, dead pines as red as foxes scattered about. Though he sniggered, Pax told himself that the young folk needed more to keep them busy and out of such chicanery. He shook his head and sauntered on, the hope of his gun’s return guiding him like a steady hand leading him across a stony stream.
If you like these samples of Kevin C. Stewart’s upcoming novel, PAX, 1960, place your order now and have it delivered to your door when it’s published this fall.
A native West Virginian, Kevin C. Stewart now lives in Montana, serves as Associate Professor of English at Carroll College and holds an MFA from The University of Arkansas. His story collection, The Way Things Always Happen Here, was a finalist for Foreword Magazine’s short-story collection of the year and for the Weatherford Award for the best Southern Appalachian book of fiction. His work has appeared in Shenandoah, The Antietam Review, The Connecticut Review, Now and Then, The Texas Review (1999 Novella Prize), The Southeast Review, Juked, Fiction Southeast, American Literary Review, The Hamilton Stone Review, The Common, Red River Review and Cowboy Jamboree. His stories was also selected for Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia and in Writers by the River: Reflections on 40+ Years of the Highland Summer Conference.