Knockemstiff [Hardcover]

Donald Ray Pollock (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 18, 2008

In this unforgettable work of fiction, Donald Ray Pollock peers into the soul of a tough Midwestern American town to reveal the sad, stunted but resilient lives of its residents.

Spanning a period from the mid-sixties to the late nineties, the linked stories that comprise Knockemstiff feature a cast of recurring characters who are woebegone, baffled and depraved—but irresistibly, undeniably real. Rendered in the American vernacular with vivid imagery and a wry, dark sense of humor, these thwarted and sometimes violent lives jump off the page at the reader with inexorable force. A father pumps his son full of steroids so he can vicariously relive his days as a perpetual runner-up body builder. A psychotic rural recluse comes upon two siblings committing incest and feels compelled to take action. Donald Ray Pollock presents his characters and the sordid goings-on with a stern intelligence, a bracing absence of value judgments, and a refreshingly dark sense of bottom-dog humor.

With an artistic instinct honed on the works of Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews, Pollock offers a powerful work of fiction in the classic American vein. Knockemstiff is a genuine entry into the literature of place.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Significant Seven, March 2008: A quick Internet search for "Knockemstiff, Ohio" reveals a lazy nexus of shabby houses and dirt roads in southern Ohio, lacking a post office and grocery store, but rich in legends of epic fistfights and swamp-dwelling ghosts. Donald Ray Pollock, a native of this "ghost town," populates his own Knockemstiff with living revenants: huffers, murderers, sex fiends, and their hapless (though not innocent) victims, all tethered to the woebegone "holler" by their own self-inflicted shortcomings and depravities. Pollock pulls no punches--his prose is blunt and visceral, as well as stylish and skilled--and reading these mini grand guignols can be like crunching on a mouthful of your own broken teeth. He resists casting judgment (or sympathy) on his doomed reprobates; predator or prey (or sometimes both), Pollock contemplates his characters with all the warmth of a "frozen bleach bottle." It's an astonishing debut. --Jon Foro

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.)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 206 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (March 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385523823
• ISBN-13: 978-0385523820
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (123 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,507 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Donald Ray Pollock grew up in Knockemstiff, Ohio, and quit high school at seventeeen to work in a meatpacking plant. He then spent thirty-two years employed as a laborer at the Mead Paper Corporation in Chillicothe, Ohio, before enrolling in the MFA program at Ohio State University. His first book, a collection of stories called Knockemstiff, won the 2009 PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship. His novel, The Devil All The Time, is forthcoming from Doubleday in July, 2011. Though pretty much a Luddite when it comes to most computer stuff, he is now on Facebook (facebook.com/DonaldRayPollock) and also has a website at www.donaldraypollock.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

197 of 208 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bruised, Vulnerable, Ill-Starred Inhabitants of Knockemstiff, Ohio April 10, 2008

By Grady Harp HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format: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

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Donald Ray Pollock, my hero March 26, 2008

By Bill Mitchell

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

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

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars good storytelling: gritty and grim March 29, 2008

By David W. Straight

Format:Hardcover

You get 18 short stories here in a little over 200 pages. Knockemstiff is an actual town in Ohio, and the author grew up there: you can see a photo or two if you do a Google search. From the stories in the book, you wouldn't think that it could produce a Donald Pollock. The tales are terse, succinct, and portray an unrelentingly grim locale. There doesn't seem to be much hope for any of the residents, or much joy outside of misused prescription drugs, Bactine-sniffing, and booze. Knockemstiff isn't a place you'd like to live within 50 miles of.

The stories take place over many years, with flashbacks to the 1940's, and most of the people appear in more than one story. This has the benefit that even though a tale might introduce a new person or two, the other people and places are already very familiar. What will be unsettling for most readers will be the behavior and activies of the townspeople. Incest, rape, and murder occur at times, but an underlying sense of tension and violence is almost always present. If you like sweet tales of romance, you'd best try some other book: the closest thing here might be a story about a boy and his sister's doll. All in all, it's a grim place and life, and effectively narrated.

There are some other writers this book brings to mind. Cormac McCarthy's Child of God is, in a way, like a full-length novel about one of Knockemstiff's people. McCarthy's Outer Dark and The Orchard Keeper also come to mind. Another similar voice, not as well known as McCarthy, but who should not be missed, is William Gay. Gay's novels The Long Home, Provinces of Night (the title comes from a line in Child of God), and Twilight are excellent, and Gay's book of short stories I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down will remind you of Knockemstiff. Gay's writing is evocative and lyrical, and like Pollock, Gay came to writing late in life. Pollock seems to have a lot of the same talent that Gay does, and both have, no doubt, a lot of similar experiences with a deeply rural life. I think what I'd like to see next from Pollock would be a novel, a novel with Knockemstiff characters, ideally a novel like Gay's dark Long Home or Provinces of Night. Pollock's stories are such that you could see many of them developed into full-length novels: so this is a fine start for a promising writer.