- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Anchor; Reprint edition (Mar 10 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 076792830X
- ISBN-13: 978-0767928304
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.7 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #245,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
A native of Knockemstiff, Ohio, Pollock delivers poignant and raunchy accounts of his hometown's sad and stagnant residents in his debut story collection that may remind readers of its thematic grand-daddy, Winesburg, Ohio. The works span 50 years of violence, failure, lust and depravity, featuring characters like Jake, an abandoned hermit who dodges the draft during WWII, lives in a bus and discovers two young siblings committing incest on the bank of a creek, and Bobby, a recovering alcoholic who must face the imminent death of his abusive father. The language and imagery of the novel are shockingly direct in detailing the pitiful lives of drug abusers, perverts and a forgotten population that just isn't much welcome nowhere in the world. Many of the characters appear in more than one story, providing a gritty depth to the whole, but the character that stands out the most is the town, as dismal and hopeless as the locals. Pollock is intimate with the grimy aspects of a small town (especially one named after a fistfight) full of poor, uneducated people without futures or knowledge of any other way to live. The most startling thing about these stories is they have an aura of truth. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
“Knockemstiff is a powerful, remarkable, exceptional book."—Los Angeles Times“More engaging than any new fiction in years.” —Chuck Palahniuk“Pollock’s voice is fresh and full-throated…His steely, serrated prose…calls to mind Harry Crews.” —The New York Times Book Review“[Donald Ray Pollock] could be the next important voice in American fiction.”—Wall Street Journal“These are absorbing stories that linger and haunt. They crept up on me, leaving me breathless and shaken.” —Oregonian “Startling, bleak, uncompromising, and funny…This is as raw as American fiction gets. It is an unforgettable experience.” —San Francisco Chronicle“Here is a collection of stories that are perhaps unique in our time…Wry and raw and poignant, these extraordinary stories are gritty with the yeast of folks caught in the act of being only too human.” —Larry Heinemann, author of Paco’s Story“Profanely comic…Pollock’s tales are spiked with a lurid panache that handily earns its own literary genre: Southern Ohio Gothic.” —Elle “Pollock doesn’t so much push the envelope as incinerate it, but his potent narrative gifts (and pitch-black humor) make it impossible to look away from the flames.” —The Washington Post“This electrifying collection of linked stories uses the voices of the rural hamlet of Knockemstiff to create a coherent world of echoing themes and recurring characters that has the drive and impact of a fine novel. Pollock brings grace and precision to colloquial language, and the ferocious integrity of his vision is flat-out stunning. Pollock grapples with savagery and reveals primal tenderness. After every story in Knockemstiff I had to take a walk and let my head cool down. I keep reaching for some other writer to compare him with—maybe a Raymond Carver with hope and vitality, or a godless Flannery O’Connor—but Pollock is no shadow of anybody else. This is a powerful talent at work.” —Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Knock Em Bored,
By Reader and Writer "Chris" (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Knockemstiff (Paperback)
Who gets behind books like this? With what was it last count, 500? 800 writing programs in the US at the masters and PhD levels? Well this is the sort of stuff the workshops in such places crank out. The plots of this little town are oh so "outre" but the writing is as bad as its future. Ok, not seriously bad, a few grammatical tics and some errors in spelling for the most part, but bad enough to be absolutely average. Take one small town, fill it with losers and idiots who do something and then reflect momentarily without insight and you have the general plotline of nearly every story here. To say they are related stories is nearly a misnomer, they mention a character here and there from another story but one does not lead to consequences in another. Hey Carver could do this if you're interested. Now take characters who arrive into scenes that, if thought about for two seconds, would never happen. Example, the feature movie of a drive-in starts and the father and son go into the bathroom. Wow, the trough is full of men and there are even more men lined up waiting, hopping on one foot as they wait. Think twice, at the start of the feature? And men don't hop around like that. It's really a shallowness that infects most of the stories. Another example, two children go missing because they are killed by the village idiot (OK one of a town full) and nobody every goes to find them. Really? Is it normal that kids just go missing and their family moves away? This is a highly problematic book in that respect. Add to this no memorable moments or lines. In a number of stories the writing voice shifts all over, sometimes into slang then out then back again. This is a sign of a writer without much experience. These feel like workshop stories--formulaic and predictable. What was Dorothy Parker's aphorism...this is a book not to be put down lightly, it should be thrown with great force.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.9 out of 5 stars (98 customer reviews) 192 of 203 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Bruised, Vulnerable, Ill-Starred Inhabitants of Knockemstiff, Ohio,
By Grady Harp - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Knockemstiff (Hardcover)
Donald Ray Pollock is talented. His style of writing is one that feels like spontaneous impressions of a tribal people from which he takes the reader by the collar and spins wild tales, all the while making us believe each of his weirdly comic/tragic characters actually exists. Pollock's vantage is not unlike the gopher who happens to burrow up into a strange neighborhood, glances about is total disbelief, then scurries back down in wonder about the current state of the world: the mound he leaves behind is this highly entertaining book.
Though Knockemstiff is an actual place in the remnants of a once settled and civilized Ohio, Pollock uses the place as the matrix from which he devises some of the strangest stories in literature. Though the book is a collection of short stories, Pollock ties some of the characters together in different stories giving the reader the idea that the number of creatures who populate this degenerate town are so few that they must serve as actors more than once. These people are often disabled by drugs, alcohol, physical abnormalities, mental derangements, or the products of barely together couplings that mutually drive partners into bizarre behaviors. Pollock can create suggestive sexual scenes only to remind the reader with the use of brittle descriptions that the surroundings are peppered with detritus, enough to keep the lights on. Each of the aimlessly unhappy folks we encounter retains an edge of humor (despite some impressively dour physical attributes) and that is in the end what keeps the reader engaged. To retain interest in these folks through eighteen varied (but not dissimilar) stories Pollock is forced to occasionally rely on fantasy episodes out of town, but he deftly keeps his characters in the dirt/mud/snow of Knockemstiff in a manner that keeps the thwarted dreams grounded. Pollock uses a language that is rich and colorful, and even while his characters seem to be disengaged from a happy life, he manages to take some flights into the beauty of nature - yes, even in Knockemstiff, Ohio the land can be beautiful. The stories he has written can be read quickly, but the metaphors each carry need some time to absorb. There is a little of each of us somewhere in Knockemstiff, whether we admit it or not. For a first novel, this is a winner! Donald Ray Pollock IS talented. Grady Harp, April 08 25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Donald Ray Pollock, my hero,
By Bill Mitchell "RagingBill" - Published on Amazon.com
Donald Ray Pollock's my hero. He's taken a leap into space and he's not coming back. I'm only half way through this book, but it's already been worth the money. More than worth it. I'm taking my time with it.
This man who stopped at age 45 to write his book; he felt it was now or never. He didn't want to go to his grave without trying. Now he has carved out a career -- away from driving trucks or working at a meat packing plant. That's guts, and he's good. I don't know where he gets his stories, how he writes so well, or how he sleeps at night. But he's driving at 120 miles per hour to a place that's impossible to describe. Just amazing. Bill 16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Captivating despite (or because of) the wretchedness,
By J. Schowengerdt "Gertie" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Knockemstiff (Hardcover)
These stories are intense, quirky, a little down-dirty, and fascinating.
If someone had described this book to me before I'd read it, I might have thought "not my thing". The characters are not especially likable, the stories are not particularly uplifting. Then again, that's part of the point. Even though part of me kept thinking "can't one of these folks get their bleep together and live a happy life?", the rest of me was busy wallowing in their misery. Aside from the content of the stories, the writing style is interesting. Some of the descriptions made me chuckle, and a few of them brought on the thought "yeah, that's it exactly!". There are a couple of Pollock's stories to be found online if you want to get a taste before committing to the book- but it's hardly necessary. You probably won't be able to turn away. |
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